POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

The National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R), conducted between February 2001 and April 2003, comprised interviews of a nationally representative sample of 9,282 Americans aged 18 years and older. The NCS-R estimated the lifetime prevalence of PTSD among adult Americans to be 6.8% . The lifetime prevalence of PTSD among men was 3.6% and among women was 9.7%. Fifteen percent of Vietnam Theater veterans twenty years after the war were diagnosed with PTSD according to the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (1990). Thus, the diagnosis is by no means uncommon. Two important features of meeting the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder begins when the individual experiences, witnesses, or is confronted by an event(s) that involves actual or threatened death, serious injury or threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others. This must be coupled with a response of horror, terror, intense fear or helplessness. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is very treatable and psychotherapy has been found to be extremely helpful.