The likelihood of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the presentation of the disorder appear to be affected by a number of the individual and societal risk factors.
Pre- and peri-trauma risk factors for PTSD include:
- History of trauma exposure prior to the index traumatic event
- Less education
- Lower socioeconomic status
- Childhood adversity (including childhood trauma/abuse)
- Personal and family psychiatric history
- Gender
- Race
- Poor social support
- Physical injury (including traumatic brain injury) as part of the traumatic event
- Initial severity of reaction to the traumatic event.
The frequency with which PTSD occurs after a traumatic event has been found to be influenced by characteristics of the individual and the inciting event. Intentional trauma has been found to have a greater association with PTSD than traumatic events that were unintentional/non-assaultive. Increasing duration of exposure to trauma has also been associated with a higher risk of PTSD. Females are twice as likely to develop PTSD as males after adjusting for exposure to traumatic events. The rates of PTSD are similar among males and females after events such as accidents (6.3% versus 8.8%), natural disasters (3.7% versus 5.4%), and sudden death of a loved one (12.6 versus 16.2%).
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