Problems in diagnosing and deciding on compensation for PTSD in Japan

In Japan, the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has attracted wide attention after the Great Hanshin Earthquake and the subway sarin gas attack in 1994. Compensation problems about PTSD diagnosis has became a social problem now. So we felt the necessity to create a clear criteria to be used by Japanese psychiatrists for diagnosis PTSD. We send out a questionnaire about diagnosis and compensation for PTSD. We received back 764 questionnaire which equaled 21.7% of total that we send out. In the questionnaire we set up fictitious examples based on real cases, and asked the psychiatrists who participated in the survey whether these cases could cause PTSD. 1 explain the criteria used by Japanese psychiatrists for diagnosis PTSD and also to report PTSD examples which became to be social problem.