Health Topic

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

You can get Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after experiencing a traumatic event. PTSD starts at different times for different people.

Reviewed Reviewed by a registered pharmacistGeneral information

Also called: PTSD

Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health disorder that some people develop after they experience or see a traumatic event. The traumatic event may be life-threatening, such as combat, a natural disaster, a car accident, or sexual assault. But sometimes the event is not necessarily a dangerous one. For example, the sudden, unexpected death of a loved one can also cause PTSD.

It's normal to feel afraid during and after a traumatic situation. The fear triggers a "fight-or-flight" response. This is your body's way of helping to protect itself from possible harm. It causes changes in your body such as the release of certain hormones and increases in alertness, blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing.

In time, most people recover from this naturally. But people with PTSD don't feel better. They feel stressed and frightened long after the trauma is over. In some cases, the PTSD symptoms may start later on. They might also come and go over time.

Researchers don't know why some people get PTSD and others don't. Genetics, neurobiology, risk factors, and personal factors may affect whether you get PTSD after a traumatic event.

You can develop PTSD at any age. Many risk factors play a part in whether you will develop PTSD. They include:

  • Your sex; women are more likely to develop PTSD
  • Having had trauma in childhood
  • Feeling horror, helplessness, or extreme fear
  • Going through a traumatic event that lasts a long time
  • Having little or no social support after the event
  • Dealing with extra stress after the event, such as loss of a loved one, pain and injury, or loss of a job or home
  • Having a history of mental illness or substance use

There are four types of PTSD symptoms, but they may not be the same for everyone. Each person experiences symptoms in their own way. The types are:

  • Re-experiencing symptoms, when something reminds you of the trauma and you feel that fear again. Examples include Flashbacks, which cause you to feel like you are going through the event again
  • Nightmares
  • Frightening thoughts
  • Stay away from places, events, or objects that are reminders of the traumatic experience. For example, if you were in a car accident, you might stop driving.
  • Avoiding thoughts or feelings related to the traumatic event. For example, you might try to stay very busy to try to avoid thinking about what happened.
  • Being easily startled
  • Feeling tense or "on edge"
  • Having difficulty sleeping
  • Having angry outbursts
  • Trouble remembering important things about the traumatic event
  • Negative thoughts about yourself or the world
  • Feeling blame and guilt
  • No longer being interested in things you enjoyed
  • Trouble concentrating

The symptoms usually start soon after the traumatic event. But sometimes they may not appear until months or years later. They also may come and go over many years.

If your symptoms last longer than four weeks, cause you great distress, or interfere with your work or home life, you might have PTSD.

A health care provider who has experience helping people with mental illnesses can diagnose PTSD. The provider will do a mental health screening and may also do a physical exam. To get a diagnosis of PTSD, you must have all of these symptoms for at least one month:

  • At least one re-experiencing symptom
  • At least one avoidance symptom
  • At least two arousal and reactivity symptoms
  • At least two cognition and mood symptoms

The main treatments for PTSD are talk therapy, medicines, or both. PTSD affects people differently, so a treatment that works for one person may not work for another. If you have PTSD, you need to work with a mental health professional to find the best treatment for your symptoms.:

  • Talk therapy, or psychotherapy, can teach you about your symptoms. You will learn how to identify what triggers them and how to manage them. There are different types of talk therapy for PTSD.
  • Medicines can help with the symptoms of PTSD. Antidepressants may help control symptoms such as sadness, worry, anger, and feeling numb inside. Other medicines can help with sleep problems and nightmares.

There are certain factors that can help reduce the risk of developing PTSD. These are known as resilience factors, and they include:

  • Seeking out support from other people, such as friends, family, or a support group
  • Learning to feel good about your actions in the face of danger
  • Having a coping strategy or a way of getting through the bad event and learning from it
  • Being able to act and respond effectively despite feeling fear

It sits within Mental Health and Behavior.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Institute of Mental Health.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

2,786 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

Start Here

Diagnosis and Tests

Treatments and Therapies

Living With

Related Issues

Statistics and Research

Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.