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The Methodological Problem of Identifying Criterion A Traumatic Events During the COVID‐19 Era: A Commentary on Karatzias et al. (2020)
Author(s) -
Van Overmeire Roel
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1002/jts.22594
Subject(s) - covid-19 , pandemic , psychology , posttraumatic stress , psychiatry , anxiety disorder , event (particle physics) , clinical psychology , medicine , anxiety , disease , virology , pathology , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty) , physics , quantum mechanics
A recent study published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress demonstrated that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rates in Ireland are as high as 17.7% and that this could be related to the COVID‐19 pandemic (Karatzias et al., 2020). However, this number is probably skewed, as the fundamental requirement for a PTSD diagnosis—namely, a life‐threatening or severely stressful event—was not fulfilled. In this comment, the consideration of COVID‐19–related PTSD to represent a diagnosis is questioned based on the definitions of PTSD in the ICD ‐ 11 and DSM ‐ 5 .