Experiencing a traumatic event does not necessarily mean that a person will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In fact, only about 6% of the general population will have PTSD at some point in their lives. There are various factors that can influence whether or not someone develops PTSD after a traumatic event, such as the strength of their support system, genetics, and a history of early childhood trauma. It is important to note that developing PTSD is never a sign of weakness or mental defect.
A recent study sought to identify which factors could predict the level of PTSD symptoms three months after admission to a level I trauma center. Multinomial logistic regression showed that age, depression, number of premorbid psychiatric disorders, gunshot wound, car versus pedestrian accident, and alcohol consumption could predict who had PTSD symptoms after three months with an accuracy of 76.3%. However, when controlling for the severity of PTSD at the start of the study, only age, number of premorbid psychiatric disorders, and gunshot wounds predicted PTSD symptoms at three months with an accuracy of 78.5%. It is possible that psychiatric severity is associated with other risk factors such as lower social support, income, and living in environments that are more prone to trauma.
The PC-PTSD is considered a psychometric sound screen to determine the presence of PTSD in the Virginia environment and has also been used in the civilian primary care population. Hospitalization characteristics were obtained from the hospital trauma registry (TraumaBase — Clinical Data Management, Colorado Springs, Colorado) and included the number of complications, days of use of a ventilator, length of stay in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), total length of hospital stay and number of comorbidities. These findings suggest that psychological prevention efforts in trauma centers may be better targeted at young adults with premorbid psychiatric disorders and those who enter with gunshot wounds. Identifying variables that predict who will develop chronic PTSD symptoms after trauma can help to more efficiently use resources to treat or prevent potential chronic PTSD and can help develop specific intervention efforts in level I trauma centers.
Stressors that often cause these types of disorders are experiences such as moving to university, suffering an illness, the death of a close person in a person's life, and other life-changing events that cause discomfort and create changes in a person's life. For Thomsen, this notion implies that it may be important to determine whether symptoms in a given therapist reflect secondary trauma or retraumatization. Both models (the model that includes the baseline PC-PTSD as a covariate and the model that does not include the baseline PC-PTSD) are very similar in their predictions and in the accuracy of their predictions, since the prediction accuracy, whether it is symptomatic or not during follow-up in both models, is slightly higher than 76%. Trauma centers are an ideal point of intervention for preventing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Consequently, determining which risk factors can help reduce the risk of developing PTSD can help make better use of resources for treatment or prevention. Age, number of premorbid psychiatric disorders, gunshot wounds, depression levels, car versus pedestrian accidents and alcohol consumption have all been identified as potential risk factors for developing PTSD after a traumatic event.
