Data from control groups in these intervention studies often also reveal the natural course of PTSD. Other studies have longitudinally examined the effectiveness of treatment interventions, , which highlight the advantage of early intervention to shorten the time to remission of symptoms. Longitudinal studies of responses to traumatic events document the course of illness and recovery in trauma-exposed populations confirming, as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) has written, that posttraumatic stress disorder has a variable course that can be acute or chronic, remitting after only three months, delayed after six months, or lasting for years. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The manuscript was written in the routine course of work in academic institutions. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.įunding: No specific source of funding supported this work. This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. Received: AugAccepted: FebruPublished: April 11, 2013 University of Pennsylvania, United States of America (2013) A Systematic Review of PTSD Prevalence and Trajectories in DSM-5 Defined Trauma Exposed Populations: Intentional and Non-Intentional Traumatic Events. Citation: Santiago PN, Ursano RJ, Gray CL, Pynoos RS, Spiegel D, Lewis-Fernandez R, et al.