7. Trauma and Stressor Related Disorders
7.1. Reactive Attachment Disorder
7.2. Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder
7.3. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
7.4. Acute Stress Disorder
7.5. Adjustment Disorders
T r3Um 3 - a n d StrGSSOr-rGlaIGd disorders include disorders in which exposure to
a traumatic or stressful event is listed explicitly as a diagnostic criterion. These include reactive
attachment disorder, disinhibited social engagement disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), acute stress disorder, and adjustment disorders. Placement of this chapter reflects
the close relationship between these diagnoses and disorders in the surrounding chapters on
anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, and dissociative disorders.
Psychological distress following exposure to a traumatic or stressful event is quite variable.
In some cases, symptoms can be well understood within an anxiety- or fear-based
context. It is clear, however, that many individuals who have been exposed to a traumatic
or stressful event exhibit a phenotype in which, rather than anxiety- or fear-based symptoms,
the most prominent clinical characteristics are anhedonic and dysphoric symptoms,
externalizing angry and aggressive symptoms, or dissociative symptoms. Because of these
variable expressions of clinical distress following exposure to catastrophic or aversive
events, the aforementioned disorders have been grouped under a separate category:
trauma- and stressor-related disorders. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for the clinical picture
to include some combination of the above symptoms (with or without anxiety- or
fear-based symptoms). Such a heterogeneous picture has long been recognized in adjustment
disorders, as well. Social neglect—that is, the absence of adequate caregiving during
childhood—is a diagnostic requirement of both reactive attachment disorder and disinhibited
social engagement disorder. Although the two disorders share a common etiology,
the former is expressed as an internalizing disorder with depressive symptoms and withdrawn
behavior, while the latter is marked by disinhibition and externalizing behavior.
Reactive attachment disorder of infancy or early childhood is characterized by a pattern of markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate attachment behaviors, in which a child rarely or minimally turns preferentially to an attachment figure for comfort, support, protection, and nurturance. The essential feature is absent or grossly underdeveloped attachment between the child and putative caregiving adults. Children with reactive attachment disorder are believed to have the capacity to form selective attachments. However, because of limited opportunities during early development, they fail to show the behavioral manifestations of selective attachments. That is, when distressed, they show no consistent effort to obtain comfort, support, nurturance, or protection from caregivers. Furthermore, when distressed, children with this disorder do not respond more than minimally to comforting efforts of caregivers. Thus, the disorder is associated with the absence of expected comfort seeking and response to comforting behaviors. As such, children with reactive attachment disorder show diminished or absent expression of positive emotions during routine interactions with caregivers. In addition, their emotion regulation capacity is compromised, and they display episodes of negative emotions of fear, sadness, or irritability that are not readily explained. A diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder should not be made in children who are developmentally unable to form selective attachments. For this reason, the child must have a developmental age of at least 9 months.
Because of the shared etiological association with social neglect, reactive attachment disorder often co-occurs with developmental delays, especially in delays in cognition and language. Other associated features include stereotypies and other signs of severe neglect (e.g., malnutrition or signs of poor care).
The prevalence of reactive attachment disorder is unknown, but the disorder is seen relatively rarely in clinical settings. The disorder has been found in young children exposed to severe neglect before being placed in foster care or raised in institutions. However, even in populations of severely neglected children, the disorder is uncommon, occurring in less than 10% of such children.
Conditions of sotial neglect are often present in the first months of life in children diagnosed
with reactive attachment disorder, even before the disorder is diagnosed. The clinical
features of the disorder manifest in a similar fashion between the ages of 9 months and
5 years. That is, signs of absent-to-minimal attachment behaviors and associated emotionally
aberrant behaviors are evident in children throughout this age range, although differing
cognitive and motor abilities may affect how these behaviors are expressed. Without
remediation and recovery through normative caregiving environments, it appears that signs
of the disorder may persist, at least for several years.
It is unclear whether reactive attachment disorder occurs in older children and, if so, how
it differs from its presentation in young children. Because of this, the diagnosis should be
made with caution in children older than 5 years.
Similar attachment behaviors have been described in young children in many different cultures around the world. However, caution should be exercised in making the diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder in cultures in which attachment has not been studied.
Reactive attachment disorder significantly impairs young children's abilities to relate inteφersonally
to adults or peers and is associated with functional impairment across many
domains of early childhood.
The essential feature of disinhibited social engagement disorder is a pattern of behavior that involves culturally inappropriate, overly familiar behavior with relative strangers (Criterion A). This overly familiar behavior violates the social boundaries of the culture. A diagnosis of disinhibited social engagement disorder should not be made before children are developmentally able to form selective attachments. For this reason, the child must have a developmental age of at least 9 months.
Because of the shared etiological association with social neglect, disinhibited social engagement disorder may co-occur with developmental delays, especially cognitive and language delays, stereotypies, and other signs of severe neglect, such as malnutrition or poor care. However, signs of the disorder often persist even after these other signs of neglect are no longer present. Therefore, it is not uncommon for children with the disorder to present with no current signs of neglect. Moreover, the condition can present in children who show no signs of disordered attachment. Thus, disinhibited social engagement disorder may be seen in children with a history of neglect who lack attachments or whose attachments to their caregivers range from disturbed to secure.
The prevalence of disinhibited social attachment disorder is unknown. Nevertheless, the disorder appears to be rare, occurring in a minority of children, even those who have been severely neglected and subsequently placed in foster care or raised in institutions. In such high-risk populations, the condition occurs in only about 20% of children. The condition is seen rarely in other clinical settings.
Disinhibited social engagement disorder significantly impairs young children's abilities to relate interpersonally to adults and peers.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Because of social impulsivity that sometimes
The essential feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the development of characteristic
symptoms following exposure to one or more traumatic events. Emotional reactions
to the traumatic event (e.g., fear, helplessness, horror) are no longer a part of
Criterion A. The clinical presentation of PTSD varies. In some individuals, fear-based reexperiencing,
emotional, and behavioral symptoms may predominate. In others, anhedonic
or dysphoric mood states and negative cognitions may be most distressing. In some
other individuals, arousal and reactive-externalizing symptoms are prominent, while in
others, dissociative symptoms predominate. Finally, some individuals exhibit combinations
of these symptom patterns.
The directly experienced traumatic events in Criterion A include, but are not limited
to, exposure to war as a combatant or civilian, threatened or actual physical assault (e.g.,
physical attack, robbery, mugging, childhood physical abuse), threatened or actual sexual
violence (e.g., forced sexual penetration, alcohol/drug-facilitated sexual penetration, abusive
sexual contact, noncontact sexual abuse, sexual trafficking), being kidnapped, being
taken hostage, terrorist attack, torture, incarceration as a prisoner of war, natural or human-
made disasters, and severe motor vehicle accidents. For children, sexually violent
events may include developmentally inappropriate sexual experiences without physical
violence or injury. A life-threatening illness or debilitating medical condition is not necessarily
considered a traumatic event. Medical incidents that qualify as traumatic events involve
sudden, catastrophic events (e.g., waking during surgery, anaphylactic shock).
Witnessed events include, but are not limited to, observing threatened or serious injury,
unnatural death, physical or sexual abuse of another person due to violent assault, domestic
violence, accident, war or disaster, or a medical catastrophe in one's child (e.g., a lifethreatening
hemorrhage). Indirect exposure through learning about an event is limited to
experiences affecting close relatives or friends and experiences that are violent or accidental
(e.g., death due to natural causes does not qualify). Such events include violent personal
assault, suicide, serious accident, and serious injury. The disorder may be especially
severe or long-lasting when the stressor is interpersonal and intentional (e.g., torture, sexual
violence). ^
The traumatic event can be reexperienced in various ways. Commonly, the individual
has recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive recollections of the event (Criterion Bl). Intrusive
recollections in PTSD are distinguished from depressive rumination in that they apply
only to involuntary and intrusive distressing memories. The emphasis is on recurrent
memories of the event that usually include sensory, emotional, or physiological behavioral
components. A common reexperiencing symptom is distressing dreams that replay the
event itself or that are representative or thematically related to the major threats involved
in the traumatic event (Criterion B2). The individual may experience dissociative states
that last from a few seconds to several hours or even days, during which components of
the event are relived and the individual behaves as if the event were occurring at that moment
(Criterion B3). Such events occur on a continuum from brief visual or other sensory
intrusions about part of the traumatic event without loss of reality orientation, to complete
loss of awareness of present surroundings. These episodes, often referred to as "flashbacks,"
are typically brief but can be associated with prolonged distress and heightened
arousal. For young children, reenactment of events related to trauma may appear in play
or in dissociative states. Intense psychological distress (Criterion B4) or physiological reactivity
(Criterion B5) often occurs when the individual is exposed to triggering events that
resemble or symbolize an aspect of the traumatic event (e.g., windy days after a hurricane;
seeing someone who resembles one's perpetrator). The triggering cue could be a physical
sensation (e.g., dizziness for survivors of head trauma; rapid heartbeat for a previously
traumatized child), particularly for individuals with highly somatic presentations.
Stimuli associated with the trauma are persistently (e.g., always or almost always)
avoided. The individual commonly makes deliberate efforts to avoid thoughts, memories,
feelings, or talking about the traumatic event (e.g., utilizing distraction techniques to avoid
internal reminders) (Criterion Cl) and to avoid activities, objects, situations, or people
who arouse recollections of it (Criterion C2).
Negative alterations in cognitions or mood associated with the event begin or worsen
after exposure to the event. These negative alterations can take various forms, including an
inability to remember an important aspect of the traumatic event; such amnesia is typically
due to dissociative amnesia and is not due to head injury, alcohol, or drugs (Criterion Dl).
Another form is persistent (i.e., always or almost always) and exaggerated negative expectations
regarding important aspects of life applied to oneself, others, or the future (e.g.,
"I have always had bad judgment"; "People in authority can't be trusted") that may manifest
as a negative change in perceived identity since the trauma (e.g., "I can't trust anyone
ever again"; Criterion D2). Individuals with PTSD may have persistent erroneous cognitions
about the causes of the traumatic event that lead them to blame themselves or others
(e.g., "It's all my fault that my uncle abused me") (Criterion D3). A persistent negative
mood state (e.g., fear, horror, anger, guilt, shame) either began or worsened after exposure
to the event (Criterion D4). The individual may experience markedly diminished interest
or participation in previously enjoyed activities (Criterion D5), feeling detached or estranged
from other people (Criterion D6), or a persistent inability to feel positive emotions
(especially happiness, joy, satisfaction, or emotions associated with intimacy, tenderness,
and sexuality) (Criterion D7).
Individuals with PTSD may be quick tempered and may even engage in aggressive
verbal and/or physical behavior with little or no provocation (e.g., yelling at people, getting
into fights, destroying objects) (Criterion El). They may also engage in reckless or selfdestructive
behavior such as dangerous driving, excessive alcohol or drug use, or selfinjurious
or suicidal behavior (Criterion E2). PTSD is often characterized by a heightened
sensitivity to potential threats, including those that are related to the traumatic experience
(e.g., following a motor vehicle accident, being especially sensitive to the threat potentially
caused by cars or trucks) and those not related to the traumatic event (e.g., being fearful of
suffering a heart attack) (Criterion E3). Individuals with PTSD may be very reactive to unexpected
stimuli, displaying a heightened startle response, or jumpiness, to loud noises or
unexpected movements (e.g., jumping markedly in response to a telephone ringing) (Criterion
E4). Concentration difficulties, including difficulty remembering daily events (e.g.,
forgetting one's telephone number) or attending to focused tasks (e.g., following a conversation
for a sustained period of time), are commonly reported (Criterion E5). Problems
with sleep onset and maintenance are common and may be associated with nightmares
and safety concerns or with generalized elevated arousal that interferes with adequate sleep
(Criterion E6). Some individuals also experience persistent dissociative symptoms of detachment
from their bodies (depersonalization) or the world around them (derealization);
this is reflected in the ''with dissociative symptoms" specifier.
Developmental regression, such as loss of language in young children, may occur. Auditory pseudo-hallucinations, such as having the sensory experience of hearing one's thoughts spoken in one or more different voices, as well as paranoid ideation, can be present. Following prolonged, repeated, and severe traumatic events (e.g., childhood abuse, torture), the individual may additionally experience difficulties in regulating emotions or maintaining stable interpersonal relationships, or dissociative symptoms. When the traumatic event produces violent death, symptoms of both problematic bereavement and PTSD may be present.
In the United States, projected lifetime risk for PTSD using DSM-IV criteria at age 75 years is 8.7%. Twelve-month prevalence among U.S. adults is about 3.5%. Lower estimates are seen in Europe and most Asian, African, and Latin American countries, clustering around 0.5%-L0%. Although different groups have different levels of exposure to traumatic events, the conditional probability of developing PTSD following a similar level of exposure may also vary across cultural groups. Rates of PTSD are higher among veterans and others whose vocation increases the risk of traumatic exposure (e.g., police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel). Highest rates (ranging from one-third to more than onehalf of those exposed) are found among survivors of rape, military combat and captivity, and ethnically or politically motivated internment and genocide. The prevalence of PTSD may vary across development; children and adolescents, including preschool children, generally have displayed lower prevalence following exposure to serious traumatic events; however, this may be because previous criteria were insufficiently developmentally informed. The prevalence of full-threshold PTSD also appears to be lower among older adults compared with the general population; there is evidence that subthreshold presentations are more common than full PTSD in later life and that these symptoms are associated with substantial clinical impairment. Compared with U.S. non-Latino whites, higher rates of PTSD have been reported among U.S. Latinos, African Americans, and American Indians, and lower rates have been reported among Asian Americans, after adjustment for traumatic exposure and demographic variables.
The risk of onset and severity of PTSD may differ across cultural groups as a result of variation
in the type of traumatic exposure (e.g., genocide), the impact on disorder severity of
the meaning attributed to the traumatic event (e.g., inability to perform funerary rites after
a mass killing), the ongoing sociocultural context (e.g., residing among unpunished perpetrators
in postconflict settings), and other cultural factors (e.g., acculturative stress in
immigrants). The relative risk for PTSD of particular exposures (e.g., religious persecution)
may vary across cultural groups. The clinical expression of the symptoms or symptom
clusters of PTSD may vary culturally, particularly with respect to avoidance and
numbing symptoms, distressing dreams, and somatic symptoms (e.g., dizziness, shortness
of breath, heat sensations).
Cultural syndromes and idioms of distress influence the expression of PTSD and the
range of comorbid disorders in different cultures by providing behavioral and cognitive
templates that link traumatic exposures to specific symptoms. For example, panic attack
symptoms may be salient in PTSD among Cambodians and Latin Americans because of
the association of traumatic exposure with panic-like khyal attacks and ataque de nervios.
Comprehensive evaluation of local expressions of PTSD should include assessment of cultural
concepts of distress (see the chapter "Cultural Formulation" in Section III).
PTSD is more prevalent among females than among males across the lifespan. Females in the general population experience PTSD for a longer duration than do males. At least some of the increased risk for PTSD in females appears to be attributable to a greater likelihood of exposure to traumatic events, such as rape, and other forms of interpersonal violence. Within populations exposed specifically to such stressors, gender differences in risk for PTSD are attenuated or nonsignificant.
Traumatic events such as childhood abuse increase a person's suicide risk. PTSD is associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, and presence of the disorder may indicate which individuals with ideation eventually make a suicide plan or actually attempt suicide.
PTSD is associated with high levels of social, occupational, and physical disability, as well
as considerable economic costs and high levels of medical utilization. Impaired functioning
is exhibited across social, inteq:)ersonal, developmental, educational, physical health,
and occupational domains. In community and veteran samples, PTSD is associated with
poor social and family relationships, absenteeism from work, lower income, and lower educational
and occupational success.
The essential feature of acute stress disorder is the development of characteristic symptoms
lasting from 3 days to 1 month following exposure to one or more traumatic events.
Traumatic events that are experienced directly include, but are not limited to, exposure
to war as a combatant or civilian, threatened or actual violent personal assault (e.g., sexual
violence, physical attack, active combat, mugging, childhood physical and/or sexual violence,
being kidnapped, being taken hostage, terrorist attack, torture), natural or humanmade
disasters (e.g., earthquake, hurricane, airplane crash), and severe accident (e.g.,
severe motor vehicle, industrial accident). For children, sexually traumatic events may
include inappropriate sexual experiences without violence or injury. A life-threatening
illness or debilitating medical condition is not necessarily considered a traumatic event.
Medical incidents that qualify as traumatic events involve sudden, catastrophic events (e.g.,
waking during surgery, anaphylactic shock). Stressful events that do not possess the severe
and traumatic components of events encompassed by Criterion A may lead to an adjustment
disorder but not to acute stress disorder.
The clinical presentation of acute stress disorder may vary by individual but typically
involves an anxiety response that includes some form of reexperiencing of or reactivity to
the traumatic event. In some individuals, a dissociative or detached presentation can predominate,
although these individuals typically will also display strong emotional or physiological
reactivity in response to trauma reminders. In other individuals, there can be a
strong anger response in which reactivity is characterized by irritable or possibly aggressive
responses. The full symptom picture must be present for at least 3 days after the traumatic
event and can be diagnosed only up to 1 month after the event. Symptoms that occur
immediately after the event but resolve in less than 3 days would not meet criteria for
acute stress disorder.
Witnessed events include, but are not limited to, observing threatened or serious injury,
unnatural death, physical or sexual violence inflicted on another individual as a result
of violent assault, severe domestic violence, severe accident, war, and disaster; it may
also include witnessing a medical catastrophe (e.g., a life-threatening hemorrhage) involving
one's child. Events experienced indirectly through learning about the event are limited
to close relatives or close friends. Such events must have been violent or accidental—death
due to natural causes does not qualify—and include violent personal assault, suicide, serious
accident, or serious injury. The disorder may be especially severe when the stressor
is interpersonal and intentional (e.g., torture, rape). The likelihood of developing this disorder
may increase as the intensity of and physical proximity to the stressor increase.
The traumatic event can be reexperienced in various ways. Commonly, the individual
has recurrent and intrusive recollections of the event (Criterion Bl). The recollections are
spontaneous or triggered recurrent memories of the event that usually occur in response
to a stimulus that is reminiscent of the traumatic experience (e.g., the sound of a backfiring
car triggering memories of gunshots). These intrusive memories often include sensory
(e.g., sensing the intense heat that was perceived in a house fire), emotional (e.g., experiencing
the fear of believing that one was about to be stabbed), or physiological (e.g., experiencing
the shortness of breath that one suffered during a near-drowning) components.
Distressing dreams may contain themes that are representative of or thematically related
to the major threats involved in the traumatic event. (For example, in the case of a
motor vehicle accident survivor, the distressing dreams may involve crashing cars generally;
in the case of a combat soldier, the distressing dreams may involve being harmed in
ways other than combat.)
Dissociative states may last from a few seconds to several hours, or even days, during
which components of the event are relived and the individual behaves as though experiencing
the event at that moment. While dissociative responses are common during a traumatic
event, only dissociative responses that persist beyond 3 days after trauma exposure
are considered for the diagnosis of acute stress disorder. For young children, reenactment
of events related to trauma may appear in play and may include dissociative moments
(e.g., a child who survives a motor vehicle accident may repeatedly crash toy cars during
play in a focused and distressing manner). These episodes, often referred to as flashbacks,
are typically brief but involve a sense that the traumatic event is occurring in the present
rather than being remembered in the past and are associated with significant distress.
Some individuals with the disorder do not have intrusive memories of the event itself,
but instead experience intense psychological distress or physiological reactivity when
they are exposed to triggering events that resemble or symbolize an aspect of the traumatic
event (e.g., windy days for children after a hurricane, entering an elevator for a male or female
who was raped in an elevator, seeing someone who resembles one's perpetrator).
The triggering cue could be a physical sensation (e.g., a sense of heat for a bum victim, dizziness
for survivors of head trauma), particularly for individuals with highly somatic presentations.
The individual may have a persistent inability to feel positive emotions (e.g.,
happiness, joy, satisfaction, or emotions associated with intimacy, tenderness, or sexuality)
but can experience negative emotions such as fear, sadness, anger, guilt, or shame.
Alterations in awareness can include depersonalization, a detached sense of oneself (e.g.,
seeing oneself from the other side of the room), or derealization, having a distorted view of
one's surroundings (e.g., perceiving that things are moving in slow motion, seeing things
in a daze, not being aware of events that one would normally encode). Some individuals
also report an inability to remember an important aspect of the traumatic event that was
presumably encoded. This symptom is attributable to dissociative amnesia and is not attributable
to head injury, alcohol, or drugs.
Stimuli associated with the trauma are persistently avoided. The individual may refuse
to discuss the traumatic experience or may engage in avoidance strategies to minimize
awareness of emotional reactions (e.g., excessive alcohol use when reminded of the experience).
This behavioral avoidance may include avoiding watching news coverage of
the traumatic experience, refusing to return to a workplace where the trauma occurred, or
avoiding interacting with others who shared the same traumatic experience.
It is very common for individuals with acute stress disorder to experience problems
with sleep onset and maintenance, which may be associated with nightmares or with generalized
elevated arousal that prevents adequate sleep. Individuals with acute stress disorder
may be quick tempered and may even engage in aggressive verbal and/or physical
behavior with little provocation. Acute stress disorder is often characterized by a heightened
sensitivity to potential threats, including those that are related to the traumatic experience
(e.g., a motor vehicle accident victim may be especially sensitive to the threat
potentially caused by any cars or trucks) or those not related to the traumatic event (e.g.,
fear of having a heart attack). Concentration difficulties, including difficulty remembering
daily events (e.g., forgetting one's telephone number) or attending to focused tasks (e.g.,
following a conversation for a sustained period of time), are commonly reported. Individuals
with acute stress disorder may be very reactive to unexpected stimuli, displaying a
heightened startle response or jumpiness to loud noises or unexpected movements (e.g.,
the individual may jump markedly in the response to a telephone ringing).
Individuals with acute stress disorder commonly engage in catastrophic or extremely negative thoughts about their role in the traumatic event, their response to the traumatic experience, or the likelihood of future harm. For example, an individual with acute stress disorder may feel excessively guilty about not having prevented the traumatic event or about not adapting to the experience more successfully. Individuals with acute stress disorder may also interpret their symptoms in a catastrophic manner, such that flashback memories or emotional numbing may be interpreted as a sign of diminished mental capacity. It is common for individuals with acute stress disorder to experience panic attacks in the initial month after trauma exposure that may be triggered by trauma reminders or may apparently occur spontaneously. Additionally, individuals with acute stress disorder may display chaotic or impulsive behavior. For example, individuals may drive recklessly, make irrational decisions, or gamble excessively. In children, there may be significant separation anxiety, possibly manifested by excessive needs for attention from caregivers. In the case of bereavement following a death that occurred in traumatic circumstances, the symptoms of acute stress disorder can involve acute grief reactions. In such cases, reexperiencing, dissociative, and arousal symptoms may involve reactions to the loss, such as intrusive memories of the circumstances of the individual's death, disbelief that the individual has died, and anger about the death. Postconcussive symptoms (e.g., headaches, dizziness, sensitivity to light or sound, irritability, concentration deficits), which occur frequently following mild traumatic brain injury, are also frequently seen in individuals with acute stress disorder. Postconcussive symptoms are equally common in brain-injured and non-brain-injured populations, and the frequent occurrence of postconcussive symptoms could be attributable to acute stress disorder symptoms.
The prevalence of acute stress disorder in recently trauma-exposed populations (i.e., within 1 month of trauma exposure) varies according to the nature of the event and the context in which it is assessed. In both U.S. and non-U.S. populations, acute stress disorder tends to be identified in less than 20% of cases following traumatic events that do not involve interpersonal assault; 13%-21% of motor vehicle accidents, 14% of mild traumatic brain injury, 19% of assault, 10% of severe burns, and 6%-12% of industrial accidents. Higher rates (i.e., 20%-50%) are reported following interpersonal traumatic events, including assault, rape, and witnessing a mass shooting.
The profile of symptoms of acute stress disorder may vary cross-culturally, particularly with respect to dissociative symptoms, nightmares, avoidance, and somatic symptoms (e.g., dizziness, shortness of breath, heat sensations). Cultural syndromes and idioms of distress shape the local symptom profiles of acute stress disorder. Some cultural groups may display variants of dissociative responses, such as possession or trancelike behaviors in the initial month after trauma exposure. Panic symptoms may be salient in acute stress disorder among Cambodians because of the association of traumatic exposure with paniclike khyal attacks, and ataque de nervios among Latin Americans may also follow a traumatic exposure.
Acute stress disorder is more prevalent among females than among males. Sex-linked neurobiological differences in stress response may contribute to females' increased risk for acute stress disorder. The increased risk for the disorder in females may be attributable in part to a greater likelihood of exposure to the types of traumatic events with a high conditional risk for acute stress disorder, such as rape and other interpersonal violence.
Impaired functioning in social, interpersonal, or occupational domains has been shown
across survivors of accidents, assault, and rape who develop acute stress disorder. The extreme
levels of anxiety that may be associated with acute stress disorder may interfere
with sleep, energy levels, and capacity to attend to tasks. Avoidance in acute stress disorder
can result in generalized withdrawal from many situations that are perceived as
potentially threatening, which can lead to nonattendance of medical appointments, avoidance
of driving to important appointments, and absenteeism from work.
The presence of emotional or behavioral symptoms in response to an identifiable stressor is the essential feature of adjustment disorders (Criterion A). The stressor may be a single event (e.g., a termination of a romantic relationship), or there may be multiple stressors (e.g., marked business difficulties and marital problems). Stressors may be recurrent (e.g., associated with seasonal business crises, unfulfilling sexual relationships) or continuous (e.g., a persistent painful illness with increasing disability, living in a crime-ridden neighborhood). Stressors may affect a single individual, an entire family, or a larger group or community (e.g., a natural disaster). Some stressors may accompany specific developmental events (e.g., going to school, leaving a parental home, reentering a parental home, getting married, becoming a parent, failing to attain occupational goals, retirement). Adjustment disorders may be diagnosed following the death of a loved one when the intensity, quality, or persistence of grief reactions exceeds what normally might be expected, when cultural, religious, or age-appropriate norms are taken into account. A more specific set of bereavement-related symptoms has been designated persistent complex bereavement disorder. Adjustment disorders are associated with an increased risk of suicide attempts and completed suicide.
Adjustment disorders are common, although prevalence may vary widely as a function of the population studied and the assessment methods used. The percentage of individuals in outpatient mental health treatment with a principal diagnosis of an adjustment disorder ranges from approximately 5% to 20%. In a hospital psychiatric consultation setting, it is often the most common diagnosis, frequently reaching 50%.
By definition, the disturbance in adjustment disorders begins within 3 months of onset of a stressor and lasts no longer than 6 months after the stressor or its consequences have ceased. If the stressor is an acute event (e.g., being fired from a job), the onset of the disturbance is usually immediate (i.e., within a few days) and the duration is relatively brief (i.e., no more than a few months). If the stressor or its consequences persist, the adjustment disorder may also continue to be present and become the persistent form.
Environmental. Individuals from disadvantaged life circumstances experience a high rate of stressors and may be at increased risk for adjustment disorders.
The context of the individual's cultural setting should be taken into account in making the clinical judgment of whether the individual's response to the stressor is maladaptive or whether the associated distress is in excess of what would be expected. The nature, meaning, and experience of the stressors and the evaluation of the response to the stressors may vary across cultures.
The subjective distress or impairment in functioning associated with adjustment disorders
is frequently manifested as decreased performance at work or school and temporary
changes in social relationships. An adjustment disorder may complicate the course of illness
in individuals who have a general medical condition (e.g., decreased compliance with
the recommended medical regimen; increased length of hospital stay).