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Our Next Lecture

PTSD Assessment: Frequently Asked Questions

Abigail Angkaw, PhD

Wednesday, July 17 at 2:00pm ET 

Photo by SHVETS production

*New TMS registration process:  Do NOT click on "Assign to Me."  Click on "Instructor Led," then click the only option (Wednesday 7/17),  then click the blue Register button that appears in the top right.  Choose accreditation type, then click Review and Complete to receive email confirmation.

About the Presenter

Abigail Angkaw, PhD is a clinical psychologist and the National Mental Health Director for Psychosocial and Behavioral Interventions in the VA Office of Mental Health. She is also a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego and a Researcher in the VA San Diego Healthcare System. Until March 2024, Dr. Angkaw was a Consultant with the PTSD Consultation Program through the National Center for PTSD. Her primary clinical and research interests include PTSD, substance use disorder, and other co-occurring conditions as well as improving the delivery of mental health treatment. Dr. Angkaw is personally invested in helping providers through complex clinical and administrative challenges to provide high quality care for Veterans.

About the Topic

Accurate and comprehensive assessment is essential to understand a patient’s clinical presentation and to support evidence-based PTSD treatment. Clinicians have brought a wide range of questions about PTSD diagnosis and assessment to the PTSD Consultation Program. The purpose of this lecture is to review frequently asked questions related to PTSD assessment and diagnosis. Topics will include Criterion A trauma, PTSD symptoms, measurement tools, providing empathic feedback on assessments, and common patient presentations. Research, literature, and resources associated with assessment will be reviewed.

Upcoming Lectures

August 21: Tobacco, Nicotine and PTSD (Mark Myers, PhD)

September 18: Cognitive Behavioral Nightmare Therapies and PTSD (Kristi Ensor Pruiksma, PhD, DBSM)

October 16: Treating PTSD in Primary Care (Kyle Possemato, PhD)

Featured Article

PTSD Screening and Referral: For Health Care Providers

Health care providers are often the first point of contact for individuals with trauma-related experiences and PTSD symptoms. This article reviews reasons for screening and introduces the Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5). We also provide suggestions for how to respond to patients after screening, including how to provide a referral for those who screen positive for PTSD.

Read the article

Free Resources

Assessment Tools

Several PTSD screening and assessment measures have been developed by the National Center for PTSD and are available at no cost to providers.

• Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5) is a 5-items screening tool designed to identify probable PTSD
• PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) is a 20-item self-report measure used to assess the DSM-5 symptoms of PTSD for the purposes of screening or making a provisional diagnosis for PTSD and to monitor symptom change during treatment
• Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) is a 30-item structured interview used to diagnosis PTSD and measure symptom change over time

See a list of all measures authored by the National Center for PTSD

Community Providers: Learn PTSD and Suicide Risk Assessment Online

Our free online 2-day training for licensed mental health providers who treat Veterans outside of VA will be offered August 14-15.  We cover military culture and assessment of PTSD and suicide risk.  Free continuing education credits are available.

APPLY NOW

Virtual patient Anthony from Part 2 of the CAPS-5 Training

CAPS-5 Training Curriculum

The Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) is the gold standard for PTSD assessment and diagnosis for both military and civilian trauma survivors. The National Center for PTSD created the courses in the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) Training Curriculum to allow clinicians, trainees and researchers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the assessment and its administration.

• Part 1: Explains the history, rationale, administration and scoring of the CAPS-5.
• Parts 2-4: Learners administer the CAPS-5 to a virtual patient who responds to prompts and questions in real time; detailed summary feedback of the learner's performance is given at the conclusion of each course.

Free continuing education credit is available.

Are you treating U.S. Veterans?

Our team of expert clinicians is available to consult with any healthcare provider treating U.S. veterans in any setting.   We can discuss assessment, diagnosis, psychotherapy, medications, collaborating with VA care, patient and family education, continuing education, and just about anything else related to veterans and PTSD.  No question is too big or too small. Contact us at PTSDconsult@va.gov or 866-948-7880.