Diagnosis of PTSD

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The diagnostic criteria PTSD as per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) comprise of six major categories.

The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present:

• 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 person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.

The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in one (or more) of the following ways:

1. Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions.
2. Recurrent distressing dreams of the event.
3. Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated).
4. Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
5. Physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

Persistent avoidance of a stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three or (or more) of the following:

1. Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma.
2. Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma.
3. Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma.
4. Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities.
5. Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others.
6. Restricted range of affect.
7. Sense of a fore shortened future.

Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma) as indicated by two or more of the following:

1. Difficulty falling or staying asleep.
2. Irritability or outbursts of anger.
3. Difficulty concentrating.
4. Hyper vigilance.
5. Exaggerated startle response.
6. Duration of the symptoms (criteria 2, 3 and 4) is more than one month.

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