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Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
PTSD is not the emblematic disorder of the COVID-19 pandemic; adjustment disorder is
BMC Psychiatry, Vol.22, pp.1-7
2022
PMID: 35484539
Appears in COVID-19 Research
Abstract
Background:
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been hailed by some as the emblematic mental disorder of the COVID-19 pandemic, assuming that PTSD's life-threat criterion was met de facto. More plausible outcomes like adjustment disorder (AD) have been overlooked.
Methods:
An online cross-sectional survey was launched in the initial stage of the pandemic using a convenience sample of 5 913 adults to compare the prevalence of COVID-related probable PTSD versus probable AD. The abridged Impact of Event Scale - Revised (IES-6) assessed the severity of trauma- and stressor-related symptoms over the previous week. Demographic and pandemic-related data (e.g., receiving a formal diagnosis of COVID-19, job loss, loss of loved one, confinement, material hardship) were collected. A Classification and Regression Tree analysis was conducted to uncover the pandemic experiences leading to clinical 'caseness'. Caseness was defined by a score > 9 on the IES-6 symptom measure and further characterized as PTSD or AD depending on whether the Peritraumatic Distress Inventory's life-threat item was endorsed or not.
Results:
The participants were predominantly Caucasian (72.8%), women (79.2%), with a university degree (85%), and a mean age of 42.22 (SD = 15.24) years; 3 647 participants (61.7%; 95%CI [60.4, 63.0]) met the threshold for caseness. However, when perceived life-threat was accounted for, only 6.7% (95%CI [6.1, 7.4]) were classified as PTSD cases, and 55% (95%CI [53.7, 56.2]) as AD cases. Among the AD cases, three distinct profiles emerged marked by the following: (i) a worst personal pandemic experience eliciting intense fear, helplessness or horror (in the absence, however, of any life-threat), (ii) a pandemic experience eliciting sadness/grief, and (iii) worrying intensely about the safety of significant others.
Conclusions:
Studies considering the life-threat criterion as met de facto during the pandemic are confusing PTSD for AD on most counts. This misconception is obscuring the various AD-related idioms of distress that have emerged during the pandemic and the actual treatment needs.
Details
- Title
- PTSD is not the emblematic disorder of the COVID-19 pandemic; adjustment disorder is
- Authors
- Alain Brunet (Corresponding Author) - McGill UniversityMarjolaine Rivest-Beauregard - Douglas Mental Health University InstituteMichelle Lonergan - Douglas Mental Health University InstituteSabrina Cipolletta - University of PaduaAndrew Rasmussen - Fordham UniversityXiangfei Meng - McGill UniversityNematollah Jaafari - Université de PoitiersSara Romero - Harvard UniversityJulia Superka - New SchoolAdam D. Brown - New SchoolRam P. Sapkota - Douglas Mental Health University Institute
- Publication details
- BMC Psychiatry, Vol.22, pp.1-7
- Publisher
- BioMed Central Ltd.
- Date published
- 2022
- DOI
- 10.1186/s12888-022-03903-5
- ISSN
- 1471-244X
- PMID
- 35484539
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
- Data Availability
- The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
- Organisation Unit
- Thompson Institute
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991105737402621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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