Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Is Term Paper

While there are approximately 5 million people suffering from the illness at any one time in America, women are twice as likely to develop PTSD as compared to men. In relation to children and teens, more than 40% has endured at least a single traumatic incident contributing the development of the disorder. However, PTSD has occurred in nearly 15% of girls as compared to the 6% of boys.

Causative Factors of the Disorder:

As previously discussed, the main cause of post traumatic stress disorder is exposure to a life-threatening, hugely unsafe, and frightening traumatic experience. These experiences are likely to contribute to the development of the disorder if the victim feels a constant sense of danger and painful experiences (Smith & Segal, 2012). As a result of this constant feeling of painful and frightening experience, the individual remains relatively unable to overcome the incident or feel normal again. Some of the most common traumatic events that can contribute to the disorder include natural disasters, sudden death of a loved one, childhood neglect, rape, kidnapping, car or plane crashes, assault, natural disasters, and sexual or physical abuse. While the main cause of PTSD revolves around traumatic events, there are other risk factors including high levels of stress, history of depression and mental illness, lack of support and coping skills after the trauma, and family history of the disease.Diagnosis of the Disorder:

While post traumatic stress disorder has existed for as long as human beings have endured trauma, the illness was only recognized as a formal diagnosis in the 1980s (Dryden-Edwards & Stoppler, 2010). The diagnosis of PTSD is often comorbid with eating disorders, depression and substance abuse, anxiety disorders, and manic depression. The assessment of PTSD sometimes involves the use of rating scale or controlled psychiatric interview to test the disease. Some of the standardized screening tools for diagnosis of the disease include Trauma Screening Questionnaire and PTSD Symptom Scale.

Based on the DSM-IV-TR criteria for diagnosing PTSD, there are several necessary factors in this process including the patient's view of the trauma and duration and effect of associated symptoms (Grinage, 2003, p.2401). For this diagnosis to be conducted, the symptoms must exist for a minimum of one month and disrupted normal activities considerably. During this process, clinicians look for three major types of symptoms i.e. re-experiencing, avoidant, and increased arousal symptoms. The re-experiencing ones are those associated with recurrence of the traumatic event while avoidant are means in which the patient attempts to avoid the event and increased arousal symptoms are those associated with panic or anxiety attacks. The identification of.....