Summary: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Mr. Draher
PTSD Research Paper
1/13/14
Introduction:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD) is a disorder that occurs in people who have suffered through a traumatic event. Such as sexual abuse, natural disasters, war, etc. These people then go through three different types of symptoms; the first is called re-experiencing where they relive the event through nightmares, flashbacks and bad thoughts. Then there’s the second set of symptoms which are called avoidance symptoms where they do things like avoiding an area where the event occurred or somewhere that reminds them of that event, getting a strong sense of guilt, depression, worry or becoming emotionally numb, not being able to remember the event or losing interest in things that they
The treatment for soldiers in the war in Sri Lanka is more physically based then mentally and it is a known fact that there is a higher risk of PTSD in soldiers who have been in battle(Abeyasinghe 377). PTSD is prevalent in about 30% of war veterans, male and female both( Abeyasinghe 377). The study was one of the first done in Sri Lanka since no one has thought to do it previously and was carried out in 2009. They used a questionnaire that was based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; the questionnaire was made based on the Impact of Event Scale and PTSD symptom scale(Abeyasinghe 377). The questionnaire was translated into Sinhala and it was pre-tested in other injury groups and then from that, they refined the questionnaire to fit their needs and gave that to the spinal injuries and amputees(Abeyasinghe 377). The research they did was a cross sectional study, which means that they used different people who had similar interests to the study, and then got willing participants to take part in the research. The results showed that of the 96 participants, 40 of them indicated a diagnosis of PTSD(Abeyasinghe 378). That means that 41.7% of participants were diagnosed with PTSD and are not being treated for it and would not be if they had not taken the survey to find out. They did this study with Vietnam
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Bailey, Christopher R, et al. “Recent Progress in Understanding the Pathophysiology of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” CNS Drugs. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. EBSCO. Web. 2013.

McLay, Robert N, et al. “A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Virtual Reality-Graded Exposure Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Active Duty Service Members with Combat-Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. CyberPsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. EBSCO. Web. 2011