Acute and Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in the Emergence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract

As time elapses after trauma, fear circuitry and dysphoric PTSD symptoms appear to emerge as connected networks. Intrusive memories and reactivity are centrally associated with other symptoms in the acute phase, potentially pointing to the utility of addressing these symptoms in early intervention strategies.

Making connections: exploring the centrality of posttraumatic stress symptoms and covariates after a terrorist attack

“…Numbing was not among the most endorsed symptoms of posttraumatic stress in this sample, yet it was the most central symptom in the network. Our results resemble the findings from a study of the posttraumatic stress symptoms network 12 months after being injured (Bryant et al, 2016). In other studies, other symptoms were found to be more central, such as concentration difficulties and future foreshortening (McNally et al, 2015), or negative trauma-related emotions and flashbacks (Armour et al, 2017).…”

“…A small number of studies have explored networks of posttraumatic stress symptoms (Armour, Fried, Deserno, Tsai, & Pietrzak, 2017; Bryant et al, 2016; McNally, 2016; McNally et al, 2015). There were some similarities across the findings of these studies.…”

“…For example, in all studies strong associations were found between hypervigilance and an exaggerated startle response, and between nightmares and flashbacks. However, different symptoms were found to be the most central in the networks; for example hypervigilance and future foreshortening (McNally et al, 2015), feeling detached (McNally, 2016), negative trauma-related emotions, flashbacks, detachment, and physiological cue reactivity (Armour et al, 2017), or intrusions and physiological reactivity (Bryant et al, 2016). The contradictory results may be due to differences in the trauma populations that were studied.…”

“…The contradictory results may be due to differences in the trauma populations that were studied. The first study examined people who were grieving a lost child and dealing with practical difficulties following an earthquake (McNally et al, 2015), the second examined people with a history of childhood sexual abuse (McNally, 2016), the sample in the third study had experienced a wide range of traumas (Armour et al, 2017), and the fourth study included hospitalized patients with traumatic injuries (Bryant et al, 2016). These experiences are quite different, and they may not necessarily elicit the same network of symptoms.…”

PTSD symptomics: network analyses in the field of psychotraumatology

“…Symptomics research in the area of PTSD has been scarce so far, although several studies have focused on investigating the network structures of PTSD symptoms (Afzali et al, 2017; Armour, Fried, Deserno, Tsai, & Pietrzak, 2017; Bryant et al, 2017; Fried et al, 2017; McNally et al, 2015; Mitchell et al, 2017). The present special issue of EJPT adds to the literature by curating four additional PTSD network studies, each looking at a different aspect of PTSD.…”