Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of boxes
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part 1 Theoretical and general issues
- Part 2 Specific mental health conditions across cultures
- Part 3 Management issues in the cultural context
- 19 Cross-cultural psychiatric assessment
- 20 Clinical management of patients across cultures
- 21 Ethnic and cultural factors in psychopharmacology
- 22 Communication with patients from other cultures: the place of explanatory models
- 23 Working with patients with religious beliefs
- 24 Interpreter-mediated psychiatric interviews
- 25 Treatment of victims of trauma
- 26 Effective psychotherapy in an ethnically and culturally diverse society
- 27 Diversity training for psychiatrists
- 28 Informing progress towards race equality in mental healthcare: is routine data collection adequate?
- 29 Towards social inclusion in mental health?
- Index
25 - Treatment of victims of trauma
from Part 3 - Management issues in the cultural context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of boxes
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part 1 Theoretical and general issues
- Part 2 Specific mental health conditions across cultures
- Part 3 Management issues in the cultural context
- 19 Cross-cultural psychiatric assessment
- 20 Clinical management of patients across cultures
- 21 Ethnic and cultural factors in psychopharmacology
- 22 Communication with patients from other cultures: the place of explanatory models
- 23 Working with patients with religious beliefs
- 24 Interpreter-mediated psychiatric interviews
- 25 Treatment of victims of trauma
- 26 Effective psychotherapy in an ethnically and culturally diverse society
- 27 Diversity training for psychiatrists
- 28 Informing progress towards race equality in mental healthcare: is routine data collection adequate?
- 29 Towards social inclusion in mental health?
- Index
Summary
Summary Not all traumatic events cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and people develop PTSD symptoms after events that do not seem to be overwhelmingly traumatic. In order to direct services appropriately, there is a need to distinguish time-limited post-traumatic symptoms and acute stress reactions (which may improve spontaneously without treatment or respond to discrete interventions) from PTSD, with its potentially more chronic pathway and possible long-term effects on the personality. In this chapter, we describe acute and chronic stress disorders and evidence about the most effective treatments.
As the world appears to enter a more uncertain period, attention is being paid to the psychological aftermath of terrorism and natural disasters. However, as the language of PTSD has entered the general lexicon, there is a danger of dilution of the meaning of the term and symptoms. Following the terrorist attack in New York on 11 September 2001, probable PTSD was reported in 7.5% of New Yorkers, many of whom had no direct involvement in the attacks (Galea et al, 2003).
Prevalence of PTSD
The prevalence of PTSD within a community will depend to some extent on the prevalence of traumatic events in the life of that community. The National Comorbidity Survey in the USA found the estimated lifetime prevalence of PTSD among adult Americans to be 8%, with women (10%) twice as likely as men (5%) to have PTSD at some point in their lives (Kessler et al, 1995). However, this represents only a small portion of those who have experienced traumatic events: 60% of men and 51% of women reported at least one such event. The most frequently reported traumas were witnessing someone being badly injured or killed, being involved in a natural disaster or life-threatening accident, and combat exposure. In this National Comorbidity Survey (which presents the largest data-set and longest follow-up, albeit with retrospective assessments), the rate of PTSD declined at a relatively constant rate over 12 months, with a more gradual decline over 6 years.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Clinical Topics in Cultural Psychiatry , pp. 319 - 336Publisher: Royal College of PsychiatristsPrint publication year: 2010