Rizwan Taj.
Post-traumatic stress disorder:a new concept in psychiatric diagnosis.
J Pak Inst Med Sci Jan ;7(2)8(1,2):536-8.

Post-graumatic stress disorder is a newly introduced pshychiatric diagnosis. It was initially formulated in DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association 1980) and has now appeared in ICD-10 (WHO 1992). The disorder is quite common and epidemiological studies have indicated a lifetime prevalance of PTSD in the range of 1-9%.

CASE REPORT: A fifty year old Pakistani-American engineer returns to Pakistan with his family and befriends a local property dealer in F-10 market. Over the next few months he puts his two children in school and finds a job for himself. The dealer informs him that the deal to buy a house has been finalized and he should arrive with a Rs. 200,000 cheque to sign the initial papers. The person arrives and is attacked by three men including the dealer and is asked to ring the bank to get the cheque cleared. After being severely beaten and threatened with serious consequences for his children (should he go to the police), he is dropped in front of his house. After the episode he moves residence to a different location and stops his children from attending school. One month afterwards he is brought to the psychiatric outpatient department with complaints of persistent anxiety, reliving the experience, irrational fear for his family, marked sleep disturbance and avoidance of places related to the incident.

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