Posttraumatic stress symptoms in victims of childhood incest.

The relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the experience of severe childhood incest was investigated in a comparison of 97 adult female victims of incest and 65 matched controls. It appeared that 62% of the incest victims and none of the controls met the DSM-III-R criteria for PTSD. The best predictor for the development of PTSD appeared to be the subjective reaction at the time of the event, consisting of anxiety, freezing and dissociation. The incest victims also displayed other psychiatric symptoms, such as self-mutilation and conversions. Although the relation incest-PTSD is quite obvious, the diagnosis may easily be missed because the symptoms may be masked by other psychiatric phenomena.