Edinburgh Napier’s Centre for Mental Health Practice, Policy and Law Research believes everyone has a right to the highest attainable standard of mental health across individuals’ lifespan.

Our expert multi-disciplinary approach—involving academics, students and public, private and third sector stakeholders and informed by lived experience, carers and practitioners—addresses health and social care needs and challenges to find meaningful and impactful solutions that offers support and helps influence.

Problem:

Research suggests up to 4% of the population may experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at any given time. Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is a more debilitating condition than PTSD and it requires a different treatment approach.

Solution:

Edinburgh Napier’s Professor Thanos Karatzias of the university’s Centre for Mental Health Practice, Policy & Law Research is a world leading expert in complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). He leads various global research projects in this field and through international collaboration with peers working in mental health, he has been instrumental in getting CPTSD officially recognised and diagnosed. 

Leading international research into CPTSD

Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is a relatively new diagnosis. Compared to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), CPTSD is more strongly associated with more frequent trauma, and a greater accumulation of different types of traumatic experiences - such as childhood trauma, abuse, neglect and loss and higher levels of functional impairment.

Professor Thanos Karatzias from our Centre for Mental Health Practice, Policy & Law Research and researchers from across the globe collaborated to lead the first study in the world describing and establishing CPTSD as a new condition. This research included studies into the prevalence of CPTSD and suitable interventions.

Achieving global recognition for the diagnosis of CPTSD 

Working with international peers in the field, Professor Karatzias and colleagues tested and developed reliable and valid measures of CPTSD, including a new assessment tool, the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ). This study has been translated into over 30 languages and published in over 70 peer review studies all over the world. The team also developed a new intervention for CPTSD called the ‘Enhanced Skills Training of Effective and Interpersonal Regulation’ (EASTER).

This international collaborative research and work has established CPTSD into the ICD-11, the World Health Organisation’s international classification of diseases 11th revision and the global standard for diagnostic health information.

By having an official recognised diagnosis of CPTSD and defining symptom profiles which match more accurately people's experiences, it validates their life experiences, and will help mental health practitioners to develop new treatments that are more personalised and targeted to their patients’ problems, so that those living with CPTSD can get better treatment and live full and healthy lives.