Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating anxiety disorder affecting approximately 5.2 million Americans, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Originally called "shell shock," PTSD was first observed in war veterans, but it is not limited to the military; it can affect those in civilian walks of life as well—anyone who has experienced a terrifying event can develop PTSD. Such events can include natural disasters, automobile or airplane crashes, violent crimes, and repeated incidents of domestic violence.

According to this Special Topics analysis, the top 20 papers published in the past 10 years and in the past three years cover a wide range of concerns related to PTSD, including epidemiology, predictors, assessment, treatments, and comorbidity. MRI findings from several prospective studies show that PTSD patients have a smaller hippocampal volume than that seen in matched controls. MRI and PET scans have been used to discern the neuronal circuitry of PTSD. Treatments include the drugs fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline, and olanzapine, as well as cognitive behavior therapy and even one successful trial using online therapy. PTSD appears to be accompanied frequently by major depression, according to comorbidity studies on our lists. Other studies making the top 20 lists include the examination of stress vs. trauma, urinary cortisol levels in PTSD patients, and the exposure of children to TV after a terrorist event.

Methodology

To construct this database, papers were extracted based on a TOPIC search for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The keywords used were as follows: 

• PTSD
• Post-traumatic stress

The baseline time span for this database is 1994-2004 (first bimonthly). The resulting database contained 3,315 (10 years) and  806 (3 years) papers; 6,624 authors; 63 countries; 613 journals; and 2,038 institutions.

Rankings

Once the database was in place, it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers (three, and ten years periods), authors, journals, institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1994-2004.

The top 20 papers are ranked according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds used to determine scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper were as follows: 13, 37, 5, and 10, respectively. These thresholds correspond to the top 1% of authors, 1% of institutions, 50% of countries and 10% of journals by total papers.

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