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Updated: Sep 26, 2026

Polar Histogram Visualization of Acute Stress Disorder Scale Scores for Comprehensive Clinical Assessment
Published on: December 6, 2024
Diagnostic overlap between acute stress disorder and PTSD in victims of violent crime
Chris R Brewin1, Bernice Andrews, Suzanna Rose
1University College London, UK. c.brewin@ucl.ac.uk
Objective:
In a group of crime victims, the authors investigated overlap between acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses and their relative ability to predict PTSD at 6 months.
Method:
A mixed-sex group of 157 victims of violent assault were interviewed within 1 month of the crime. At the 6-month follow-up, 87.9% were reinterviewed by telephone.
Results:
At baseline the rate of acute stress disorder was 19.1%, the rate of PTSD was 21.0%, and the percentage agreement between them was 95.5%. The two diagnoses were equally effective predictors of PTSD 6 months later.
Conclusions:
The high level of overlap between acute stress disorder and PTSD calls into question whether, as presently formulated, they represent distinct diagnoses.
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