Acute stress disorder
Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) is a mental health condition that arises in the first few days or weeks following a traumatic event, characterized by symptoms similar to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) but occurring at an earlier stage. The main aspects of Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) include:
Longitudinal Studies:
Studies show that much of the natural recovery from trauma happens within the first 2 to 3 months post-trauma, with some individuals experiencing acute symptoms that resolve without treatment, while others develop chronic symptoms.
There are differing recovery patterns observed in trauma-exposed youth, with some experiencing acute symptoms that improve and others developing persistent ones.
Symptoms & Assessment:
The DSM-IV focused on the dissociative symptom cluster, which was found to have limited predictive validity for PTSD in both children and adults.
In DSM-5, ASD no longer requires intense subjective peritraumatic reactions and includes a wider set of symptoms categorized into intrusion, negative mood, dissociation, avoidance, and arousal.
Science Direct. (2023). Acute stress disorder. Current Opinion in Psychology. Science Direct. Retrieved from bit.ly/4hvwzkr
Meiser-Stedman, R., McKinnon, A., Dixon, C., Boyle, A., Smith, P., & Dalgleish, T. (30 January 2017). Acute stress disorder and the transition to posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents: Prevalence, course, prognosis, diagnostic suitabil