Author:
Dorrington Sarah,Zavos Helena,Ball Harriet,McGuffin Peter,Rijsdijk Fruhling,Siribaddana Sisira,Sumathipala Athula,Hotopf Matthew
Abstract
BackgroundMost studies of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have focused on ‘high-risk’ populations defined by exposure to trauma.AimsTo estimate the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a LMIC, the conditional probability of PTSD given a traumatic event and the strength of associations between traumatic events and other psychiatric disorders.MethodOur sample contained a mix of 3995 twins and 2019 non-twins. We asked participants about nine different traumatic exposures, including the category ‘other’, but excluding sexual trauma.ResultsTraumatic events were reported by 36.3% of participants and lifetime PTSD was present in 2.0%. Prevalence of non-PTSD lifetime diagnosis was 19.1%. Of people who had experienced three or more traumatic events, 13.3% had lifetime PTSD and 40.4% had a non-PTSD psychiatric diagnosis.ConclusionsDespite high rates of exposure to trauma, this population had lower rates of PTSD than high-income populations, although the prevalence might have been slightly affected by the exclusion of sexual trauma. There are high rates of non-PTSD diagnoses associated with trauma exposure that could be considered in interventions for trauma-exposed populations. Our findings suggest that there is no unique relationship between traumatic experiences and the specific symptomatology of PTSD.Copyright and usage© Royal College of Psychiatrists 2014. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.
Publisher
Royal College of Psychiatrists
Subject
Psychiatry and Mental health
Cited by
38 articles.
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