CLASSIFYING PATTERNS RELATING TO THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER USING PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS ANALYSIS

摘要

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) as the disorder associated when "The person has experienced an event that is outside the range of usual human experience and that would be markedly distressing to almost anyone " [1] Such events that have been studied in the past as having caused this disorder include combat, assaults, and accidents, among other situations in which a person feels that their life is in danger Most adults in the United States have been exposed to trauma and approximately 8% of them have met criteria for PTSD Actually, a high percentage of the population having experience such a traumatic event have been diagnosed with PTSD shortly after the event However, that percentage drops dramatically within the first year of the event occurrence [2] Among those patients whose symptoms do not subside, remission is unusual in cases where PTSD duration exceeds this one year period [3] Therefore, there has been considerable interest in understanding early determinants of the disorder.