Archival ReportThe Role of Criterion A2 in the DSM-IV Diagnosis of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Section snippets
Samples
Data come from WMH surveys in 21 countries, 5 low-income or lower-middle-income (Colombia, India, Nigeria, People's Republic of China [Beijing and Shanghai], and Ukraine), 6 upper-middle-income (Brazil, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Mexico, Romania, and South Africa), and 10 high-income (Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and United States) countries (Table 1). A total of 102,247 respondents were interviewed in these surveys. Part I of the interviews, which
Prevalence of DSM-IV PTSD Criteria A1 and A2
Lifetime exposure to PTEs was reported by 67.9% of respondents (72.8% in high-income, 61.7% in upper-middle-income, and 63.1% in low-income/lower-middle-income countries). Disaggregated comparisons (detailed results available on request) found the higher exposure in high-income countries due largely to automobile accidents. Weighted mean number of PTEs per respondent with any was 4.5 (4.7 in high-income, 4.1 in upper-middle-income, and 4.6 in low-income/lower-middle-income countries) for 305.6
Discussion
This study found that PTEs are commonly occurring, that a much higher proportion of the randomly selected PTEs meet criterion A2 than any other DSM-IV PTSD criterion, that conditional prevalence of meeting diagnostic threshold based on other criteria is significantly higher in the presence than absence of A2, and that only a small fraction of respondents who meet diagnostic threshold based on other criteria fail to meet A2. The last of these results means the sample-specific prevalence of PTSD
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