Shevlin, Mark and Hyland, Philip and Karatzias, Thanos (2020) Is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Meaningful in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Response to Van Overmeire's Commentary on Karatzias et al. (2020). Journal of Traumatic Stress, 33. pp. 866-868. ISSN 0894-9867

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Abstract

In a recently published study in this journal that used a population-based sample in the Republic of Ireland (Karatzias et al., 2020), we concluded that 17.7% of the sample met the diagnostic requirements for COVID-19–related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Subsequently, Van Overmeire (2020) has raised concerns about the validity of our findings, arguing that simply experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic is not sufficient to meet the trauma exposure criterion for a PTSD diagnosis and, consequently, our estimated PTSD prevalence figure was inflated. In this response, we provide (a) an explanation for why the COVID-19 pandemic can be reasonably considered to be a traumatic event, (b) evidence that PTSD in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a meaningful construct, and (c) an argument for why our estimated prevalence rate is not unreasonably high.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. Cite as: Shevlin, M., Hyland, P. and Karatzias, T. (2020), Is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Meaningful in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Response to Van Overmeire's Commentary on Karatzias et al. (2020). Journal of Traumatic Stress, 33: 866-868. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22592
Keywords:	Posttraumatic Stress Disorder; COVID-19; Pandemic; Response; Van Overmeire's Commentary on Karatzias et al;
Academic Unit:	Assisting Living & Learning,ALL institute Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology
Item ID:	15132
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22592
Depositing User:	Philip Hyland
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2021 15:14
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Traumatic Stress
Publisher:	Wiley
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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