PTSD Diagnostic Criteria

Diagnostic criteria

The diagnostic criteria for PTSD, per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (Text Revision) (DSM-IV-TR), may be summarized as:

A. exposure to a traumatic event
B. persistently reexperience
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma
D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (e.g. difficulty falling or staying asleep or hypervigilance)
E. duration of symptoms more than 1 month.
F. significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
Notably, criterion A (the "stressor") consists of two parts, both of which must apply for a diagnosis of PTSD. The first (A1) requires that "the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others." The second (A2) requires that "the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror." The DSM-IV-TR criterion differs substantially from the previous DSM-III-R stressor criterion, which specified the traumatic event should be of a type that would cause "significant symptoms of distress in almost anyone," and that the event was "outside the range of usual human experience." Since the introduction of DSM-IV, the number of possible PTSD traumas has increased and one study suggests that the increase is around 50%.