Assessing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and PTSD Symptomatology in U. S. ArmyPersonnel

摘要

This poster presentation reports on selected findings from a large-scale surveystudy of U.S. Army Gulf War veterans, showing that combat exposure is related to PTSD caseness for substantial numbers of soldiers. In defining PTSD, the diagnostic algorithm contained in DSM3-R was followed, using appropriate self-reported symptons from two scales in the soldier survey. While this PTSD scale was adequate to the purpose, some of the items were less than exact matches to the DSM3-R listed symptoms. For future work, a more precise set to DSM3-R (and now, DSMIV) based items are needed. A review of relevant studies shows that DSM-based PTSD checklists perform very well compared to other self report measures (e.g., Mississippi Scale) in identifying clinically diagnosed cases, and in terms of sensitivity and specificity. A team of researchers at the US Army Medical Research Unit-Europe has developed a new PTSD checklist and scoring procedures for use in future soldier studies. The scale is presented along with recommendations for its use. PTSD, PTSD Symptomatology, U.S. Army Gulf War, Veterans, Combat exposure, DSMIII-R, PTSD Checklist.