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Predicting future risk of PTSD

Nature Medicine volume 26, pages 1012–1013 (2020)Cite this article

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Data routinely collected in the emergency department after trauma have the potential to predict those at risk of later PTSD, which shows promise for computational psychiatry.

Of all patients who undergo admission to the emergency department (ED) after trauma in the USA, approximately 10–20% will develop anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is unclear who will and who will not, and it would be useful to be able to predict who will so that people who require follow-up can be identified. There is also need for a cost-effective and scalable method of trauma risk assessment with low additional burden for ED personnel, since this type of screening would be an additional task. Four decades of PTSD research have considerably advanced the understanding of PTSD pathobiology. However, none of the candidate predictive signals of PTSD risk has yet progressed to clinical use1. The ability to predict the risk and onset of PTSD after trauma is therefore an admirable aspirational goal with considerable benefits. In this issue of Nature Medicine, Schultebraucks et al.2 bring out the potential that computational psychiatry has in such prediction3, which will drive opportunities for prevention after trauma in the ED.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Eric Vermetten

  2. ARQ National Psychotrauma Center, Diemen, the Netherlands

    Eric Vermetten

  3. Department of Psychiatry, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

    Alexander C. McFarlane

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  1. Eric Vermetten
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  2. Alexander C. McFarlane
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Correspondence to Eric Vermetten.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Vermetten, E., McFarlane, A.C. Predicting future risk of PTSD. Nat Med 26, 1012–1013 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0981-6

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