Patient-reported outcomes in post-traumatic stress disorder Part I: Focus on psychological treatment

Why patient-reported outcomes in PTSD treatment matter. Patient reports on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) tell us more than clinician-based reports alone, and may predict how patients will cope after treatment. PTSD and modern psychological treatment have been well researched, with reliable and increasingly valid outcome criteria, for over 100 years. World War veterans with shell shock (as PTSD was referred to at the time) were encouraged by families to forget their memories, and avoid the charge of “malingering,” but psychiatrists like W. H. R. Rivers recognized the vital importance of asking patients to talk about and make sense of their experiences. Following the use of this type of treatment with US veterans of the Vietnam War, the type of traumatic events treated included not just those associated with wars, but with assaults, torture, rape, accidents, and man-made and natural disasters, to which the victims responded with helplessness and horror.

Journal

English

Patricia d’Ardenne
Sarah Heke

d’Ardenne, P., & Heke, S. (2014). Patient-reported outcomes in post-traumatic stress disorder Part I: Focus on psychological treatment.  Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 16, 213-226