Citation

Carmassi C, Dell'osso L, Manni C, Candini V, Dagani J, Iozzino L, Koenen KC, de Girolamo G. J. Psychiatr. Res. 2014; 59: 77-84.

Affiliation

IRCCS St John of God Clinical Research Centre, Via Pilastroni 4, 25125 Brescia, Italy. Electronic address: gdegirolamo@fatebenefratelli.it.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jpsychires.2014.09.006

PMID

25266475

Abstract

Epidemiological studies have examined the relative importance of Traumatic Events (TEs) in accounting for the societal burden of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, most studies used the worst trauma experienced, which can lead to an overestimation of the conditional risk of PTSD. Although a number of epidemiological surveys on PTSD have been carried out in the United States, only a few studies in limited sample have been conducted in Italy. This study, carried out in the framework of the World Mental Health Survey Initiative, is a cross-sectional household survey of a representative sample of the Italian adult population. Lifetime prevalence of TEs and 12-month prevalence of PTSD were evaluated using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Reports of PTSD associated with randomly selected TEs were weighted by the individual-level probabilities of TE selection to generate estimates of population-level PTSD risk associated with each TE. Network events was the most commonly reported class of TEs (29.4%). War events had the highest conditional risk of PTSD (12.2%). The TEs that contributed most to societal PTSD burden were unexpected death of a loved one (24.1%) and having seen atrocities (18.2%). Being female was related to high risk of PTSD after experiencing a TE. Exposure to network events is commonly reported among Italian adults, but two TEs are responsible for the highest burden associated with PTSD: the unexpected death of someone close and sexual assault. These results can help designing public health interventions to reduce the societal PTSD burden.

Language: en