Open Access Barnett et al., 1:4 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/scientificreports.255 Research Article Open Access Open Access Scientific Reports Scientific Reports Open Access Volume 1 • Issue 4 • 2012 Keywords: Stress disorders; Post-traumatic, Military personnel, PCL-C; PTSD Since its codiication in the DSM-III, the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has had considerable controversy regarding its classiication and taxonomy [1,2]. PTSD is currently classiied as an anxiety disorder, although this placement in the diagnostic category has held considerable debate, as articulated in the DSM-III-R [3], where it is pointed out that the prominent symptom of PTSD is not anxiety but the re-experiencing of a trauma. he argument for the placement of PTSD as an anxiety disorder was historically supported by the presence of behavioral, cognitive and physiological responses that were considered to evidence the occurrence of anxiety. For example, similar to panic disorder, PTSD shares the presence of intrusive thoughts about the stressful event, and evidences eforts to avoid the disturbing stimuli as well as hyper vigilance and heightened arousal, symptoms believed related to the presence of anxiety [4]. While there are symptoms in the PTSD criterion that could be considered symptom of anxiety, they could also be argued to be symptoms that are part of another disorder. Many other diagnostic categories have in fact been found to have a great deal of overlap with the symptoms needed for a diagnosis of PTSD, including those of depression and other anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder [5]. It’s been pointed out that several symptoms of PTSD, including the reexperiencing symptoms of distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the trauma, physiological reactivity, while similar to those needed for phobic states or panic attacks, are without the needed wording that adds the presence of anxiety. hus, while several symptoms bear similarity with those in other anxiety disorders, it is not certain that the experience reported is in fact an anxious one, and instead might be more representative of symptoms found with either other disorders, or are uniquely attributable to PTSD [6]. Historically, PTSD has been argued to it with a number of conceptualizations besides an anxiety disorder, including 1) dissociative disorder, 2) grief reaction, 3) afective disorder, 4) stress reactions, and most recently an 4) experimental category [7]. he latter category addresses the controversy about how to best categorize the disorder as the new DSM-V is underdevelopment with some proponents arguing a new diagnostic grouping of stressors and traumas [8,9] with other supporting the placement of the disorder in an experimental grouping to demonstrate the lack of reliability, and agreed upon conceptualization of what comprises the disorder and the discrepancies within the voluminous literature collected to date [7,10]. his contentious nature is further illustrated in the sheer volume of indings that have raised concerns over the factor structure of the disorder [11,12], the overlap with numerous other diagnostic groupings and the frequent co morbid existence of other DSM-IV disorders [13]. Related is the concern that anxiety is a multifaceted disorder, with physiological, cognitive, emotional qualities. hose features also have shared overlap with PTSD. Jones and Barlow initially argued that PTSD is most closely linked to anxiety disorders because of the *Corresponding author: Scott D Barnett, Ph.D, James A Haley VAMC, HSR&D/RR&D Research Center of Excellence, 8900 Grand Oaks Circle (118M), Tampa, FL 33637-1022, USA, Tel. 813-558-3926; Fax: 813-558-7616; E-mail: Scott.Barnett2@va.gov Received February 09, 2012; Published August 30, 2012 Citation: Barnett SD, Gibbons S, Hickling EJ (2012) The Relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL) Symptom Endorsement and Self- Reported Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression. 1: 255. doi:10.4172/scientiicre- ports.255 Copyright: © 2012 Barnett SD, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been a controversial diagnosis with arguments that the disorder could be better classiied as a dissociative disorder, grief reaction, or a stress reaction rather than an anxiety disorder. This study identiied individuals who self reported feeling anxious, and also met criterion for PTSD using data from active-duty military personnel who completed the 2008 Health Related Behaviors Questionnaire. Participants included those who 1) self-reported feelings of anxiety, 2) completed screens of PTSD, generalized anxiety and depression. Only a little more than 50% of those who met criterion for probable PTSD based on the posttraumatic stress disorder checklist - civilian (PCL-C) stated they were feeling anxious or were in treatment for anxiety. The overlap of symptoms of PTSD with screens for symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and depression was remarkably non-existent. PCL-C scores suggest 5.3% of those with probable PTSD also reported feeling anxious and 4.3% of individuals with probable PTSD reported seeking help for anxiety. The most frequent symptoms found in those individuals who reported feeling anxious were more often endorsing symptoms of avoidance, while those who did not self report feelings of anxiety showed signiicantly lowered scores on symptoms of hyperarousal and reexperiencing, and higher scores on symptoms of numbing. Implications for future classiication schema and possible impact on the role of symptom structure in how and why symptom clusters occur in such variation are discussed, and how this might impact treatment and diagnostic considerations. The Relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL) Symptom Endorsement and Self-Reported Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression Scott D Barnett 1 *, Susanne Gibbons 2 and Edward J Hickling 3 1 James A. Haley Veterans Hospital, HSR&D/RR&D Research Center of Excellence, Tampa, 8900 Grand Oaks Circle, Tampa, FL 33637, USA 2 Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda, MD, 20814 3 Bay Pines Veterans Administration Healthcare System10,000 Bay Pines Blvd. Bay Pines, FL 33744