This is a good study from the US military looking at risk factors for PTSD. I particularly liked the careful definition of PTSD, based on questionnaire response but rooted in the DSM. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the bible of psychiatric epidemiology. If the researchers don't use DSM criteria to make their diagnoses, you really have no idea of what they are choosing to call PTSD (or depression or schizophrenia or whatever).
The conclusion of the study may seem obvious with hindsight - that people with poorer health before deployment are more likely to develop PTSD - but it does enable military health services to target preventive action. More than two thirds of new cases of PTSD were in people with the lowest 15% of physical and mental health scores on the SF36 at baseline.
Comments