ABSTRACT
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a pattern of distressing symptoms that may follow experiencing a traumatic event. Such events include natural disasters, physical and sexual assaults, road traffic accidents, other accidents, and terrorist attacks. The formal diagnostic criteria for PTSD are that the person has ‘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’ and the person’s ‘response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror’ (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV, American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Furthermore, the person must have at least one symptom of re-experiencing such as intrusions, nightmares and flashbacks; at least three symptoms of avoidance and emotional numbing; and at least two symptoms of hyperarousal, such as hypervigilance and an exaggerated startle response.
