Beyond symptom self-report: use of a computer "avatar" to assess post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.

Autor: Myers CE; a Neurobehavioral Research Laboratory, Department of Veterans Affairs , VA New Jersey Health Care System , East Orange , NJ , USA.; b Department of Pharmacology, Physiology & Neuroscience , New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers University , Newark , NJ , USA., Radell ML; a Neurobehavioral Research Laboratory, Department of Veterans Affairs , VA New Jersey Health Care System , East Orange , NJ , USA., Shind C; a Neurobehavioral Research Laboratory, Department of Veterans Affairs , VA New Jersey Health Care System , East Orange , NJ , USA., Ebanks-Williams Y; a Neurobehavioral Research Laboratory, Department of Veterans Affairs , VA New Jersey Health Care System , East Orange , NJ , USA., Beck KD; a Neurobehavioral Research Laboratory, Department of Veterans Affairs , VA New Jersey Health Care System , East Orange , NJ , USA.; b Department of Pharmacology, Physiology & Neuroscience , New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers University , Newark , NJ , USA., Gilbertson MW; c Department of Veterans Affairs , Manchester , NH , USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Stress (Amsterdam, Netherlands) [Stress] 2016 Nov; Vol. 19 (6), pp. 593-598. Date of Electronic Publication: 2016 Sep 21.
DOI: 10.1080/10253890.2016.1232385
Abstrakt: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can occur in the wake of exposure to a traumatic event. Currently, PTSD symptoms are assessed mainly through self-report in the form of questionnaire or clinical interview. Self-report has inherent limitations, particularly in psychiatric populations who may have limited awareness of deficit, reduced attention span, or poor vocabulary and/or literacy skills. Diagnosis and evaluation of treatment efficacy would be aided by behavioral measures. A viable alternative may be virtual environments, in which the participant guides an on-screen "avatar" through a series of onscreen events meant to simulate real-world situations. Here, a sample of 82 veterans, self-assessed for PTSD symptoms was administered such a task, in which the avatar was confronted with situations that might evoke avoidant behavior, a core feature of PTSD. Results showed a strong correlation between PTSD symptom burden and task performance; in fact, the ability to predict PTSD symptom burden based on simple demographic variables (age, sex, combat exposure) was significantly improved by adding task score as a predictor variable. The results therefore suggest that virtual environments may provide a new way to assess PTSD symptoms, while avoiding at least some of the limitations associated with symptom self-report, and thus might be a useful complement to questionnaire or clinical interview, potentially facilitating both diagnosis and evaluation of treatment efficacy.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Interest The authors affirm that they have no relationships that could constitute potential conflict of interest.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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