Psychotherapy is encouraged by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) as the first-line treatment in the setting of pediatric PTSD. Whereas a more discrete change in behavior transpires in acute PTE, exposure to protracted PTEs incites more insidious and pervasive complications. Moreover, complex trauma disorder can present even more ambiguously in children. Internalizing and externalizing symptomatology that can manifest in the setting of PTSD include separation anxiety, shame, guilt, low frustration tolerance, hyperarousal, impulsivity, temper outbursts, hostility, defiance, aggression, irritability, and mood changes. It is likely that adults will relegate manifestations of PTSD as disagreeable youthful behavior. However, the phenomenology of PTSD in younger demographics is often more complex and can mimic variant internalizing and externalizing disorders. Ĭommon to both the adult and pediatric population are the foundational elements of post-traumatic stress disorder: re-experiencing of the trauma through intrusive and recurrent thoughts, avoidance of associated stimuli, negative modifications in mood, and alterations in reactivity and arousal. The consequences of PTSD are often deleterious, with adverse outcomes in physical and mental health besides impaired social and occupational functioning. PTSD is defined by four symptom clusters: avoidance, negative alterations in cognition and mood, intrusion, and hyperarousal per DSM-5. The transition from DSM IV to DSM-V acknowledges this inconsistency, made evident by the additional criteria specific to PTSD for children six years or younger. Children often react differently to stressful events, and because of this, the pediatric phenomenology of PTSD differs from that of adults. It has been suggested that a substantial number of children have gone inappropriately undiagnosed because of the insufficient sensitivities of previous guidelines. Moreover, recent studies have unmasked unsettling discoveries regarding pediatric considerations in the setting of PTSD. Not to be misled by the putative simplistic nature of the etiology, the consequent psychiatric sequelae can, in turn, be debilitating. The temporal association between the event exposure and the subsequent symptom manifestation is not simply a post hoc fallacy. Thus, the causal nature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) places it in the company of a scant few psychiatric diagnoses where etiology is known. To the detriment of humanity, these endeavors frequently resulted in fruitless pursuits, as we still can only postulate the etiologies of many illnesses.

Since time immemorial, scientists have pursued the ever-elusive causal origins of disease processes. Traumatic events may include incidents that involve serious harm to self or others and include accidents, natural disasters, sexual or physical trauma, natural disasters, and violence. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that may develop in some children and adolescents after exposure to a traumatic event.

Dsm 5 criteria for ptsd