Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – An Overview

Abstract

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that result in psychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity, overwhelming the individual's ability to cope. As effect of psychological trauma, PTSD is less frequent but more enduring than the more commonly seen acute stress response. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a persistent and sometimes crippling condition and develops in a significant proportion of individuals exposed to trauma, and untreated, can continue for years. Its symptoms can affect every life domain – physiological, psychological, occupational, and social. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was first introduced into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980, making it one of the more recently accepted psychiatric disorders. PTSD is one of the few DSM diagnoses to have a recognizable etiologic agent, in that it must develop in direct response to a severe (sudden, terrifying, or shocking) life event (American Psychiatric Association 2000). Since the introduction of PTSD into DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association 1980), the disorder has been documented in children exposed to traumas such as domestic violence, natural disasters, medical trauma (such as hospitalization or medical procedures performed on children), war, terrorism, and community violence. According to the American Psychological Association, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is defined as an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, such as terrorist attacks, motor vehicle accidents, rape, physical and sexual abuse, and other crimes, or military combat [1]. PTSD is a problem in which the human brain continues to react with nervousness after the horrific trauma even though the original trauma is over. Brain can react by staying in overdrive and being hyperalert in preparation for the next possible trauma. Sometimes the brain continues to remember the trauma by having flashbacks about the event or nightmares even though the trauma was in the past.