Association of PTSD symptom groups with functional impairment and distress in trauma-exposed disaster survivors.

In this and other studies, group C and numbing specifically have been shown to be associated with criterion F, which is consistent with the demonstration that group C and the numbing component specifically are central to the psychopathology of PTSD. The addition of the distress/impairment requirement broadly across the psychiatric diagnoses in DSM-IV added little value to PTSD symptom criteria. Future revisions of diagnostic criteria may benefit by carefully considering these findings to possibly re-include a prominent numbing symptom section.