Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

A PTSD program initially developed for veterans is now serving and providing benefits to civilians, with treatment typically lasting 1 week to 3 months.

Veterans with prolonged grief disorder had greater odds of also having PTSD, major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, according to data published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Compared with other hospital patients, those with COVID-19 reported greater anxiety and perceived trauma, according to findings published in BMC Psychiatry.

In middle-aged women, PTSD was associated with a quicker decline in cognitive function, according to a prospective analysis of the Nurses’ Health Study II, a longitudinal study involving middle-aged female nurses.

Researchers have described how to diagnose complex PTSD based on patient symptoms, following WHO’s new classification of the disorder, which differs from established PTSD.

Prazosin, approved in the 1970s to control hypertension and used off-label to eliminate PTSD-related nightmares, was recently shown to prevent post-traumatic headaches in veterans in a small randomized controlled trial.

In 1992, the Health Resource Network designated April as National Stress Awareness Month.

Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, or TF-CBT, more effectively reduced post-traumatic stress than usual care among children who experienced parental death in Kenya and Tanzania, according to results of a randomized clinical trial published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Findings of the largest genome-wide association study of anxiety traits to date have revealed new insights into genetic risk mechanisms shared by anxiety and related psychiatric disorders, researchers wrote in American Journal of Psychiatry.

Currently, 1.1 million LGBT individuals in the United States are aged 65 years or older, and recent estimates have predicted that this population will grow to 7 million by 2030. As more LGBT adults age, this patient population will be faced with increased likelihood for developing Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias.