Acute stress disorder: Is it a useful diagnosis?

Abstract

The potential advantages of providing early intervention for people who have been recently exposed to trauma have highlighted the need to develop more accurate means to identify people who will develop chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This review provides an outline of the acute stress disorder (ASD) diagnosis, and provides an overview of prospective studies of the relationship between ASD and PTSD. Twelve studies of the predictive power of the ASD indicate that this diagnosis does not have adequate predictive power. A review of biological and cognitive mechanisms occurring in the acute posttrauma phase suggest that these factors may provide more accurate means of predicting chronic PTSD.