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Contextual issues in the assessment of post‐traumatic stress disorder
Author(s) -
Eldridge Gloria D.
Publication year - 1991
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.2490040104
Subject(s) - traumatic stress , stressor , context (archaeology) , psychology , intervention (counseling) , clinical psychology , psychiatry , exposure therapy , anxiety , paleontology , biology
In recent years, there has been an explosion of information on the etiology, assessment, and treatment of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in individuals exposed to a wide variety of traumatic stressors. Comprehensive assessment techniques are being developed for diagnosis and treatment evaluation in PTSD; however, there remain numerous pragmatic issues related to the context of assessment for PTSD. Issues addressed in this paper include (1) implications of the purpose of the assessment (e.g., crisis intervention, treatment planning, evaluation for compensation); (2) sequelae of the assessment, including positive and negative outcomes of exposure to traumatic memories during assessment, (3) characteristics and training of the assessor and the impact of exposure to reports of traumatic events on the assessor; and (4) features of PTSD which affect the ease of case‐finding and suggest the necessity for training a variety of health care providers to recognize symptoms of PTSD.