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Clinical utility of the Primary Care--PTSD Screen among U.S. veterans who served since September 11, 2001.

Calhoun PS, McDonald SD, Guerra VS, Eggleston AM, Beckham JC, Straits-Troster K, VA Mid-Atlantic MIRECC OEF/OIF Registry Workgroup. Clinical utility of the Primary Care--PTSD Screen among U.S. veterans who served since September 11, 2001. Psychiatry Research. 2010 Jul 30; 178(2):330-5.

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Abstract:

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent anxiety disorder that is often undetected among primary care patients. The Department of Veterans Affairs has implemented the Primary Care-PTSD Screen (PC-PTSD) to screen for PTSD; however, minimal research has examined its utility. This study was designed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of the PC-PTSD among veterans who had served since 9/11/2001, including operations in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) and Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom). Signal detection analyses were used to evaluate the performance of the PC-PTSD and two other screens, the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS) and the SPAN, in a sample of 220 veterans with military service since 9/11/2001. The reference standard for PTSD was Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) diagnosis based upon structured clinical interview. The impact of demographic variables on test performance was examined. A cutting score of 3 on the PC-PTSD maximized efficiency (85%; sensitivity = 0.83; and specificity = 0.85). Although analyses supported the utility of the PC-PTSD (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.875), the measure was outperformed by both the DTS (AUC = 0.944) and the SPAN (AUC = 0.931). Results suggest that the PC-PTSD is an acceptable screen for PTSD among veterans. Within primary care settings, the PC-PTSD may be most advantageously employed in the context of staged screening, given the measure''s relative susceptibility to false positives.




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