Cross-sectional study reveals complex associations between PTSD symptom clusters and mood-anxiety dimensions in veterans, highlighting distinct psychiatric comorbidity pathways.
Key Points
To examine the structural relationship between specific PTSD symptom dimensions and broader Fear versus Anxious-Misery mood and anxiety disorder factors.
Analyzed trauma exposure, PTSD symptom presentation, and psychiatric comorbidity data in veteran primary care patients (N=668).
Conducted confirmatory factor analyses combining a four-factor PTSD model with a Fear/Anxious-Misery framework of mood and anxiety disorders.
The integrated model combining four-factor PTSD dimensions and the Fear/Anxious-Misery framework demonstrated good fit to the clinical data.
Dysphoria exhibited a significantly stronger association with the Anxious-Misery factor than did all other PTSD dimensions.
Hyperarousal correlated more strongly with the Fear factor than Re-experiencing did, whereas Avoidance did not show preferential association with Fear over Anxious-Misery.