Commentary: The evolving conception of posttraumatic stress disorder - reflections on Danzi and La Greca (2016)

As first formulated in 1980, the description of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was based on people exposed to severe and repeated traumatic events. Although the conceptualisation of PTSD in successive versions of the DSM has changed, the symptom picture remains complex and there have been concerns over whether the threshold is too high. In contrast, ICD-11 proposes a simpler diagnosis based on six symptoms and a distinction between PTSD and Complex PTSD. This approach may be more clinically useful and easier to employ for children in younger age groups. Danzi and La Greca's data are valuable in suggesting that PTSD in preadolescent as well as preschool children should be diagnosed using different criteria to adults. They also identify a lack of overlap between diagnostic systems that suggests PTSD may not be optimally identified using current methods.