The criteria to be diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is very extensive. In the DSM-V there is eight different sets of criterion which all require a number of symptoms to be met before a diagnosis can be made. “Criterion A” requires that at least one of the following needs are met to be diagnosed: Direct exposure to serious injury or death, witnessing the trauma, learning that a close friend or family member was exposed to a trauma, and indirect exposure to the details of the trauma …show more content…
The first screening tool is called the Primary Care PTSD Screen and is administered by a patient’s primary care doctor. This test takes roughly two minutes and if a patient answers “yes” to three out of the four questions on the test then they may be considered for a structured interview that is more in depth to screen for PTSD. The next screening test is the Beck Anxiety Inventory. This test is self-administered and is used to screen for PTSD, depression and anxiety. It takes around three minutes to administer and uses a score of five out of seven questions answered positively to determine if a patient has any of the illnesses that it screens for. The last widely used test to diagnose PTSD is the Trauma Screening Questionnaire. This test is self-administered and takes 4 minutes to take. It has ten questions on it and if a person answers “yes” to at least six of those questions then they should talk to their primary care doctor about having a more in depth screening