THE IMPACT OF SEVERITY OF PHYSICAL INJURY AND PERCEPTION OF LIFE THREAT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER IN MOTOR-VEHICLE ACCIDENT VICTIMS

For 98 victims of recent (1 to 4 months post-accident) motor vehicle a ccidents who sought medical attention as a result of the accident, we obtained data on the extent of physical injury using blind ratings wit h the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS), as well as victims reports of th eir perceptions of how much danger they perceived at the time of the a ccident and the degree of life threat (fear of dying) they perceived. AIS scores significantly predicted (P < 0.01) development of post-trau matic stress disorder (PTSD) (r point biserial = 0.302) and developmen t of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) (r = 0.311) as did percepti on of life threat (r point biserial = 0.294 for PTSD and r = 0.229 for PTSS). A multiple regression equation combining AIS and life threat a ccounted for 12.2% of variance in PTSS scores.