Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Pain Comorbidity in Veterans

摘要

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is prevalent and under- recognized in Veteran's Administration (VA) primary care and commonly co-occurs with chronic pain. Our primary aim was to analyze existing clinical and administrative data in Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 11 to determine whether the presence of pain affects the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD among VA patients who have a positive PTSD screening test. We identified 4, 244 patients who had a positive PTSD screen between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2007. The mean patient age was 50.4 and 91.9% were male. Half of the cohort had a concurrent pain diagnosis (n=2,104). Those with pain were slightly younger (48.8 vs. 52.0 years).