Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

1 PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder is a behavioral mental health condition that develops following an exposure to a traumatic event. Patients who suffer from PTSD show symptoms that can be categorized under intrusion, avoidance, alteration in arousal and reactivity and alterations in cognition and mood. Intrusive symptoms occur as involuntary, repetitive memories, dreams or flashbacks of the traumatic event.

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2 Avoidance is seen as avoiding people, places, situations and activities that reminds them of the traumatic event. This includes the unwillingness to talk about the trauma or what they feel about it. Alteration in arousal and reactivity includes symptoms of irritability, reckless behavior, angry outbursts and difficulty in sleeping and concentrating. Alteration in cognition and mood presents as negative thoughts and feeling that may distort their thoughts on oneself and others (Brewin et al., 2017).

Risk Factors Associated With Developing PTSD Not everyone who gets exposed to a traumatic event develops PTSD. Several factors determines one’s risk, including the nature of the traumatic event, past exposure to traumatic events, injuries sustained by self or others during the event, having previous history of substance abuse or mental illness, having to deal with stress such as loss of a loved one during or after the traumatic event and the amount of social support received after the event (Hyland, Vallières, Cloitre, Ben-Ezra, Karatzias, Olff & Shevlin, 2021). Other factors such as resilience, genetics and neurobiology could also contribute to a person’s risk of getting PTSD after a traumatic event.

What qualifies as trauma?

Trauma is any event that has a psychological impact on a persona’s mind and causes overwhelming stress that is beyond the person’s coping ability. Trauma therefore leads to a long term, serious negative consequences. Therefore, any event that affects the psychological wellbeing of a person and alters their coping mechanism can be classified as traumatic (Brewin et al., 2017). Common traumatic events that contribute to the development of PTSD include combat exposure, sexual assault, accidents, physical assault, childhood physical abuse and being

3 threatened with weapons. Others include natural disasters, kidnappings, robbery, mugging, torture terrorist attacks and life threatening medical diagnosis among others.

Whether people experience trauma in a similar manner Trauma is different in every individual. An event that causes serious trauma on one person could have mild or no trauma on another. The severity of a trauma is dependent on the person, emotional support provided and the type of trauma involved (Kessler, Aguilar-Gaxiola, Alonso, Benjet, Bromet, Cardoso & Koenen, 2017). This implies that not everyone who gets exposed to a potentially traumatic situation will actually experience the trauma or be psychologically affected. Also, people exposed to the same trauma will exhibit varying forms of psychological impact.

PTSD in combat veterans and non-combat veterans Combat veterans have the highest risk of developing PTSD due to exposure to wars and extreme conditions (Kessler et al., 2017). However, PTSD does not affect combat veterans alone.

Other populations are also at risk of developing PTSD due to exposure to different kinds of trauma. It affects people of all ages, ethnicities, races, nationality or culture. In the US, it is estimated that 3.5 percent of adults are diagnosed with PTSD each year. In children, exposure to physical abuse or witnessing violence without being abused might lead to the development of PTSD (Grant, O’Loughlin, Holbrook, Althoff, Kearney, Perepletchikova & Kaufman, 2020).

Conclusion PTSD occurs primarily due to exposure to traumatic events. Trauma has a psychological impact that could last for months and even years after initial exposure. Various factors contribute to an individual’s risk of developing PTSD including the nature of trauma, length of exposure, past exposures and injuries sustained. Symptoms and severity associated with trauma varies with

4 every individual. Whereas war veterans have the highest risk, other populations can also develop PTSD.

5 References Brewin, C. R., Cloitre, M., Hyland, P., Shevlin, M., Maercker, A., Bryant, R. A., ... & Reed, G. M. (2017). A review of current evidence regarding the ICD-11 proposals for diagnosing PTSD and complex PTSD. Clinical psychology review, 58, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2017.09.001 Grant, B. R., O’Loughlin, K., Holbrook, H. M., Althoff, R. R., Kearney, C., Perepletchikova, F., ... & Kaufman, J. (2020). A multi-method and multi-informant approach to assessing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children. International Review of Psychiatry, 32(3), 212-220. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2019.1697212 Hyland, P., Vallières, F., Cloitre, M., Ben-Ezra, M., Karatzias, T., Olff, M., ... & Shevlin, M. (2021). Trauma, PTSD, and complex PTSD in the Republic of Ireland: prevalence, service use, comorbidity, and risk factors. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 56(4), 649-658. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-020-01912-x Kessler, R. C., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Alonso, J., Benjet, C., Bromet, E. J., Cardoso, G., ... & Koenen, K. C. (2017). Trauma and PTSD in the WHO world mental health surveys. European journal of psychotraumatology, 8(sup5), 1353383. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2017.1353383