Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Finding and Critiquing Evidence

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Finding and Critiquing Evidence

Introduction

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a problem which develops when someone goes through a tragedy in his or her life. This tragedy can be any event that links them with it. These life threatening events can be floods, earthquakes, war, crime, rape, abuse, accidents, lose of life or anything which is not pleasant. For the development of post-trauma stress disorder, it is not necessary for the patient to experience these events directly. Any person might develop this disorder after observing someone else in a life-threatening situation, or even after hearing about someone else's tragedy (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

PICOT Format for PTSD

Affected Population

The majority of people experience a traumatic event in our culture, once in a lifetime. The risk for men is between 60 and 80% to 50-75% for women. In America, traffic accidents, violence and sexual assault experiences as well as the sudden death of a loved one are the most common traumatic experiences. However, only some of those people later in a post-traumatic stress disorder. The risk in the course of life at some point of suffering from post traumatic stress disorder in women is 10-12% to 5-6% in men (Joseph, Alzbeta, Vicki, Leah, 2008).

When people intentionally caused by a trauma, (sexual abuse, violence and war) often occur post-traumatic stress disorder and natural disasters, industrial disasters or accidents. Meanwhile, there are a number of studies on the therapeutic success in post-traumatic stress disorder. The psychotherapeutic treatment of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder in America, partly in the context of the victim assistance funded by the cantons (subsidiary to contributions from the insurance company) so as to violent offenses (e.g. assault, robbery), sexual offenses (e.g. rape, sexual assault), domestic violence or traffic accidents involving injury (Rubin, 2006).

Identification of Symptoms

For an individual to meet criteria for PTSD according to DSM-IV criteria, he or she must experience at least one re-experiencing symptom, three or more avoidance or numbing symptoms, and two or more hyperarousal symptoms. Re-experiencing symptoms include recurrent, unwanted thoughts, dreams, or memories of the trauma. Re-experiencing symptoms in children with PTSD may include engaging in play that involves traumatic themes or having frightening dreams without specific traumatic content. In adolescents, re-experiencing symptoms may include re-enacting the trauma in their behaviors (e.g., sexual behavior in an adolescent who experienced sexual abuse). Some individuals also experience reliving phenomenon, which can include the sense that the trauma is re-occurring, illusions, hallucinations, or flashbacks. Avoidance symptoms include avoidance of reminders of the trauma including trauma-related thoughts, places, and activities, and conversations about the trauma. Some individuals may have amnesia that has no physiological basis for important aspects of the trauma. Numbing symptoms include difficulties experiencing or blunted expression of certain emotions such as love or happiness, feelings of detachment from others, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, and a sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., that one will not have a long life, have children, have a career, or have serious ...