We are the combination of four hospitals: the General Hospital, the Children’s Hospital, the Women’s Hospital and the Traumatology, Rehabilitation and Burns Hospital. We are part of the Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus: a world-leading health park where healthcare plays a crucial role.
Below we will list the departments and units that form part of Vall d’Hebron Hospital and the main diseases that we treat. We will also make recommendations based on advice backed up by scientific evidence that has been shown to be effective in guaranteeing well-being and quality of life.
Would you like to know what your stay at Vall d'Hebron will be like? Here you will find all the information.
The commitment of Vall d'Hebron University Hospital to innovation allows us to be at the forefront of medicine, providing first class care adapted to the changing needs of each patient.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a clinical condition that can develop after an extremely traumatic experience (e.g. natural disasters, accidents or violence). It is marked by characteristic symptoms of reliving the experience, hypervigilance, avoiding stimuli related to the event and altered mood and cognition.
Although the majority of people exposed to a traumatic event recover in a reasonably short space of time and with few negative effects, some people may develop a variety of responses that make their recovery more difficult. Some of these responses are specific to traumatic stress, such as Acute Stress Reaction (ASR) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), in its various forms. In line with the Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), there are currently four groups of symptoms defined for diagnosis, following a traumatic experience, requiring a duration of symptoms greater than one month and giving rise to clinically significant discomfort or a significant deterioration in the patient's functioning. It may be accompanied by dissociative symptoms (depersonalisation and/or derealisation) and presented with a delayed expression (if all criteria are not met until at least 6 months after the event). Although exposure to the traumatic event is the precipitating cause of its development, it is increasingly evident that biological and psychosocial risk factors can be predictors of the onset of symptoms, their severity and chronicity.
1. INTRUSIVE symptoms (1 or more): memories, nightmares, dissociative reactions, intense psychological and/or physiological discomfort when faced with things that evoke the trauma.
2. AVOIDANCE symptoms (of 1 or more stimuli related to the trauma): memories, people, places, etc.
3. HYPERAROUSAL and reactivity associated with the trauma (irritability, hypervigilance, concentration problems, exaggerated overwhelming response).
4. Negative cognitive and mood alterations.
PTSD has been identified in people all over the world who have suffered traumatic experiences. Its prevalence varies depending on the intensity and type of traumatic experience as well as several vulnerability factors (social, financial, cultural and biological).
Diagnosis is CLINICAL and an adequate assessment must be made by an expert healthcare professional. There are different scales to assess the severity of the symptoms and/or associated comorbid disorders (particularly disorders relating to anxiety, mood and substance abuse).
Based on the evidence, treatment should be multi-modal: Psychoeducation, specific psychological treatments (e.g. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT), exposure therapy and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and pharmacological treatments (e.g. SSRIs, mainly sertraline and paroxetine)
Clinical history. Psychiatric and psychological interview, with the help of validated scales and questionnaires.
Screening in risk groups for early diagnosis and treatment.
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