DSM-5-TR diagnostic criteria summary
Acute Stress Disorder requires:
- Criterion A, Exposure: Actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence, directly experienced, witnessed in person, learned of in close family/friend, or repeated/extreme exposure to aversive details.
- Criterion B, Symptoms: Presence of ≥9 of 14 symptoms across five categories:
- Negative mood: persistent inability to experience positive emotions
- Dissociative: altered sense of reality, inability to remember key features
- Avoidance: efforts to avoid memories/thoughts/feelings, efforts to avoid external reminders
- Arousal: sleep disturbance, irritable behavior, hypervigilance, concentration problems, exaggerated startle
- Criterion D: Clinically significant distress or impairment.
- Criterion E: Not attributable to a substance, medical condition, or better explained by another disorder.
Source: American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), p. 313–319.
Differential diagnosis
- F43.10 PTSD, symptoms persist beyond 1 month; same trauma criterion but longer duration.
- F43.21–F43.25 Adjustment Disorders, clinically significant distress in response to a stressor that does NOT meet PTSD's Criterion A (e.g., divorce, job loss, financial stress).
- F44.x Dissociative Disorders, when dissociative symptoms predominate independent of trauma exposure.
- F33, F32 Major Depressive Disorder, depressive symptoms after trauma without the full intrusion/avoidance/arousal cluster.
- Traumatic brain injury, when concussion or TBI co-occurs with trauma; complicates assessment of acute stress symptoms.
Common comorbidities
Acute stress reaction commonly co-occurs with depression, substance use, and traumatic brain injury (in physical-trauma contexts). Common comorbidities: Major Depressive Disorder (F33, F32), Substance Use Disorders (F10–F19), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (F41.1), and (when applicable) traumatic brain injury sequelae. Co-administer PHQ-9 and AUDIT alongside trauma-specific screeners.
Sources
- American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), F43.0 / Acute Stress Disorder, p. 313–319.
- Weiss, D. S., & Marmar, C. R. (1997). The Impact of Event Scale-Revised. In J. P. Wilson & T. M. Keane (Eds.), Assessing psychological trauma and PTSD.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ICD-10-CM Official Coding Guidelines.