Acute stress disorder prediction of posttraumatic stress disorder : a review of the literature

Abstract EN

Objective: The relationship between Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been extensively researched among various types of traumas and populations to detect early-on individuals who are at risk of developing PTSD and offer immediate interventions.

This paper serves as an important follow-up to build on a previous systematic review by Bryant.

It aims to update the present knowledge in assessing ASD’s ability to predict PTSD.

Method: We extracted all relevant articles from databases including APA Psycinfo, APA Psycbooks, APA PsycTests, Medline, and Pubmed.

We fixed our time frame starting after 2011, date of Bryant’s review and focused on original articles that relied on human subjects, reported psychometric values, used English language, and examined PTSD as an outcome of traumatic events.

Results: Ten original articles were used to compose the current review.

ASD and PTSD prevalence ranged from 4.9% to 68.8% and from 6% to 56%, respectively.

In reference to psychometric properties, we found that ASD has very good NPV, a range of PPV which includes high numbers, very good specificity, but still rather low sensitivity in its capacity to predict PTSD.

Conclusion: The recent literature on the prediction of PTSD by ASD seems to be quite favorable in negative predictive values (NPV) and specificity with less good positive predictive values (PPV) and sensitivity.

We have identified some gaps in these and previous studies that have explored the correlation between the two disorders, including, quite importantly, subthreshold PTSD.