When a person experiences a traumatic event, their brain changes. An intense fear reaction can create neurological pathways in the brain that remain there for years after the event occurs. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder can change a person by making them hyper-vigilant, irritable, fearful, and many other symptoms of PTSD. These are the criteria that needs to be met and they screening tests used to diagnose someone with PTSD.
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
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