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Abstract

Among people who experience psychosis, many have comorbid post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that is frequently undiagnosed and untreated. Symptoms have long-term implications, such as hallucinations, posttraumatic intrusions, and an increased risk of physical health conditions, like heart disease and respiratory issues. Many clinicians believe that diagnosing and treating PTSD in this population will be dangerous, so these patients are often excluded from trauma-focused treatment based on their psychosis symptoms. This paper will review current data regarding the rates of undiagnosed PTSD among this population as well as the safety and efficacy of treatment options. PubMed was used to identify peer-reviewed, academic journal articles pertaining to, “PTSD,” “psychosis,” “trauma-focused treatment,” “content of first episode psychosis,” and “schizophrenia.” Eleven empirical studies were identified and included in this review. The results showed rates of PTSD among psychosis patients are much higher than currently identified, with one study finding that 16% of participants suffered from comorbid PTSD with only 0.5% of the population having been diagnosed previously. Data also showed that treatment for PTSD was safe and decreased both PTSD and psychosis symptoms in this population. These results strongly indicate that additional studies should be conducted in order to determine which trauma-focused treatments are the most safe and effective for this population. Clinicians working with psychosis patients should be informed of the results of these studies in order to encourage them to diagnose and treat the PTSD of their patients along with their psychosis.

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