We’re taking a look at Acute Stress Disorder, a diagnosis in the category of Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders. Here, we’ll cover the diagnostic criteria for Acute Stress Disorder, risk factors for this diagnosis, and more!
In the Trauma- and Stressor-Related category of diagnoses, people often talk about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD for short. However, the other diagnoses in this category don’t seem to have the same awareness. Acute Stress Disorder is one of those where I don’t hear people talk about this as much. So let’s dive in and learn a bit more about this!
The first part of the criteria for Acute Stress Disorder is about what situations can set someone up to potentially develop this diagnosis. Specifically, they must experience threatened or actual death, serious injury, or sexual violence. This can be something that occurs to them, witnessing one of these happen to someone else, or learning that one of these happened to a loved one (like a family member or close friend). They can also meet this criteria if they personally have repeated and significant exposure to traumatic events.
An important note here is that experiences someone has themselves cannot be through a form of media, such as videos. However, there is an exception made here for experiences that happen to someone through their job.
The next section of the diagnostic criteria includes symptoms that can occur for someone with Acute Stress Disorder. They must experience at least nine of these criteria.
1) Recurrent memories of the events that are involuntary and intrusive.
2) Repeated dreams or nightmares that are related to the events.
3) The person experiences reactions where they feel that they are in the event again.
4) Experiencing distress or reactions to reminders of the event, with the reaction being intense or prolonged.
5) Difficulty or inability to experience a positive mood, such as having feelings of happiness or satisfaction.
6) Experiencing an altered sense of reality. This could be feeling that one is experiencing things from an outside perspective or feeling that time is moving slowly.
7) Having difficulty remembering aspects of the event that are not due to a substance or head injury.
8) The person tries to avoid internal reminders of the event. This could include thoughts, memories, or feelings related to the event.
9) This symptom is related to avoiding external reminders of the event. This might include people, places, or things that are associated with the event.
10) This is related to having a disturbance in sleep. Which could be trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or having a more restless, disturbed sleep.
11) Having increased irritability or difficulty controlling anger.
12) This symptom is hypervigilance. This is usually related to being very aware of potential risks or threats associated with the event they experienced.
13) This is difficult with concentration. This can be a forgetfulness about daily events or trouble remembering things that the person can usually recall.
14) The last symptom is having an exaggerated startle response. This could be something like being jumpy when the phone rings, or if there is a loud noise.
Now, let’s take a look at some risk factors for Acute Stress Disorder. By risk factors, this means things that can place someone at greater risk of developing this diagnosis if they experience a significant or traumatic event in life. However, these factors do not mean that they will develop Acute Stress Disorder if they do experience a traumatic event.
Risk Factor 1:
People who already have a mental health diagnosis are more likely to develop Acute Stress Disorder. This can also be the case for people who tend to be more anxious or have a more negative, low mood.
Risk Factor 2:
People who have experienced previous traumatic events in life are at increased risk for developing Acute Stress Disorder.
Risk Factor 3:
People who are more reactive or jumpy may be at increased risk for Acute Stress Disorder.
If you or someone you know are needing immediate mental health assistance, please call or text 988, contact a local emergency telephone number, or go to the nearest emergency room.
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