Clinical Profile Differences Between PTSD-Diagnosed Military Veterans and Crime Victims

ABSTRACT

Few studies have conducted symptom comparisons across different trauma-exposed populations. Evidence linking different types of trauma to variations in clinical presentation would have potential implications for the assessment and treatment of trauma-related psychopathology. The current study evaluated whether military veterans (n = 187) and civilian crime victims (n = 47) diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder differ in their self-reported posttraumatic symptoms as measured by the Trauma Symptom Inventory. A multivariate profile analysis revealed that military-related trauma is associated with more severe posttraumatic symptoms than criminal victimization and suggested that these 2 types of trauma have statistically distinct symptom profiles. Some potential implications of these findings and considerations for future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• Trauma Symptom Inventory
• military veterans
• crime victims

This paper was presented as a poster session at the 39th Annual Convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Washington, DC, 2005.