Criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

This Post Traumatic Stress Disorder page contains an abridged version of the DSM-IV Criteria.
(The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) is a guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders in the United States.)

Please note:
This page has been included for information purposes only and although these criteria are displayed to provide a guideline to diagnosis they cannot substitute a visit to a doctor or mental health practitioner.

One more thing:
A "diagnosis" is merely a label .
It does not define you as a person.
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DSM IV Criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following have been present:

• (1) The person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others.
• (2) The person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. 
• Note: In children, this may be expressed instead by disorganized or agitated behavior.

B. For the person suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the traumatic event is persistently reexperienced in one (or more) of the following ways:

• (1) Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: In young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed.
• (2) Recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.
• (3) Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur upon awakening or when intoxicated). Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur.
• (4) Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
• (5) Physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

• (1) Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
• (2) Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
• (3) Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
• (4) Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
• (5) Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
• (6) Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)
• (7) Sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)

D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:

• (1) difficulty falling or staying asleep
• (2) irritability or outbursts of anger
• (3) difficulty concentrating
• (4) hypervigilance
• (5) exaggerated startle response

E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, and D) is more than one month.

F. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Specify -
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than 3 months
Chronic: if duration of symptoms is 3 months or more
Specify - With Delayed Onset: if onset of symptoms is at least 6 months after the stressor
Acute Stress Disorder is distinguished from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because the symptom pattern in Acute Stress Disorder must occur within 4 weeks of the traumatic event and resolve within that 4-week period.
 
If the symptoms persist for more than 1 month and meet criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the diagnosis is changed from Acute Stress Disorder to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder