Posttraumatic stress and delay discounting: a meta-analytic review

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Delay discounting, the preference for immediate over delayed rewards, is a potential transdiagnostic neurocognitive factor in mental health.
• Research examining delay discounting in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a recent but growing area.

Approach:

• A meta-analysis was conducted on 13 empirical studies (N=6897) investigating the relationship between posttraumatic stress and delay discounting.
• Studies included case-control and continuous association designs, analyzing differences and correlations respectively.

Key Points:

• A small but statistically significant positive association was found between posttraumatic stress and delay discounting (r = .135, p < .0001).
• This association remained significant across both case-control (r = .179, p < .001) and continuous association (r = .092, p = .027) study designs.
• Minimal evidence of publication bias was detected.

Conclusions:

• The findings support a link between posttraumatic stress and heightened delay discounting.
• This supports the utility of delay discounting as a transdiagnostic construct in mental health conditions, consistent with other psychiatric disorders.