Psychiatric casualties of World War II

To observe the natural history of traumatised war veterans.

A clinical audit of 147 World War II psychiatric war pensioners.

Of these veterans only 37% have a clinically sustainable DSM diagnosis of chronic post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Trauma-related and somatic symptoms of severity attributable to active war service, were volunteered by 48%. These symptoms were insufficient to fulfil DSM diagnosis criteria for PTSD.

PTSD is a robust clinical entity, yet many victims of trauma appear to suffer chronic sub-syndromal PTSD. The clinical spectrum of trauma response is more variable than is currently diagnostically acceptable by DSM criteria.