Table 1.
DSM-IV-TR criteria for PTSD[1]
| A | Stressor | 
|  | □ The person has experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others. | 
|  | □ The person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror | 
| B | Intrusive recollection (1 or more) | 
|  | □ Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. | 
|  | □ Recurrent distressing dreams of the event | 
|  | □ Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring | 
|  | □ Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event. | 
|  | □ Physiologic reactivity upon exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event | 
| C | Avoidant/numbing (3 or more) | 
|  | □ Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma | 
|  | □ Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma | 
|  | □ Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma | 
|  | □ Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities | 
|  | □ Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others | 
|  | □ Restricted range of affect | 
|  | □ Sense of foreshortened future | 
| D | Hyper-arousal (2 or more) | 
|  | □ Difficulty falling or staying asleep | 
|  | □ Irritability or outbursts of anger | 
|  | □ Difficulty concentrating | 
|  | □ Hyper-vigilance | 
|  | □ Exaggerated startle response | 
| E | Duration | 
|  | □ Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in B, C, and D) is more than one month | 
| F | Functional significance | 
| □ The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning |