Recovery from DSM-IV post-traumatic stress disorder in the WHO World Mental Health surveys.

Psychol Med
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

BACKGROUND: Research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) course finds a substantial proportion of cases remit within 6 months, a majority within 2 years, and a substantial minority persists for many years. Results are inconsistent about pre-trauma predictors.

METHODS: The WHO World Mental Health surveys assessed lifetime DSM-IV PTSD presence-course after one randomly-selected trauma, allowing retrospective estimates of PTSD duration. Prior traumas, childhood adversities (CAs), and other lifetime DSM-IV mental disorders were examined as predictors using discrete-time person-month survival analysis among the 1575 respondents with lifetime PTSD.

RESULTS: 20%, 27%, and 50% of cases recovered within 3, 6, and 24 months and 77% within 10 years (the longest duration allowing stable estimates). Time-related recall bias was found largely for recoveries after 24 months. Recovery was weakly related to most trauma types other than very low [odds-ratio (OR) 0.2-0.3] early-recovery (within 24 months) associated with purposefully injuring/torturing/killing and witnessing atrocities and very low later-recovery (25+ months) associated with being kidnapped. The significant ORs for prior traumas, CAs, and mental disorders were generally inconsistent between early- and later-recovery models. Cross-validated versions of final models nonetheless discriminated significantly between the 50% of respondents with highest and lowest predicted probabilities of both early-recovery (66-55% v. 43%) and later-recovery (75-68% v. 39%).

CONCLUSIONS: We found PTSD recovery trajectories similar to those in previous studies. The weak associations of pre-trauma factors with recovery, also consistent with previous studies, presumably are due to stronger influences of post-trauma factors.

Year of Publication
2018
Journal
Psychol Med
Volume
48
Issue
3
Pages
437-450
Date Published
2018 02
ISSN
1469-8978
DOI
10.1017/S0033291717001817
PubMed ID
28720167
PubMed Central ID
PMC5758426
Links
Grant list
R01 DA016558 / DA / NIDA NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH093612 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R03 TW006481 / TW / FIC NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH069864 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH061905 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
K01 MH106710 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
U01 MH060220 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH070884 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
T32 MH017119 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH059575 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States
R13 MH066849 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States