Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
- 1 February 1988
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wolters Kluwer Health in Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease
- Vol. 176 (2) , 107-111
- https://doi.org/10.1097/00005053-198802000-00006
Abstract
Sixty-one Vietnam veterans who had sought outpatient psychological services were evaluated for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during two independent diagnostic interviews. Data were analyzed from only those 48 subjects for whom the two diagnoses agreed upon the presence or absence of PTSD. Subjects were administered the Symptom Checklist-90-R, a modified version of the Impact of Event Scale, and two measures of combat stress: the Combat Scale Revised and the Vietnam Experience Scale. Some support was generated for the reliability and validity of the PTSD construct as outlined in DSM-III. In our sample the diagnosis of PTSD was associated with excessive arousal characterized by anxiety, anger, paranoid ideation, intrusive images, and avoidance of stimuli reminiscent of the traumatic stressor. The findings are discussed in relation to previous studies of combat-related PTSD and studies of traumatically stressed civilians.This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit:
- The MMPI and the post-traumatic stress syndrome in vietnam era veteransJournal of Clinical Psychology, 1985
- The combat exposure scale: A systematic assessment of trauma in the vietnam warJournal of Clinical Psychology, 1984
- Impact of Event Scale: A Measure of Subjective StressPsychosomatic Medicine, 1979