Fear-potentiated startle and posttraumatic stress symptoms in urban police officers

• Published in: Journal of traumatic stress Vol. 16; no. 5; pp. 471 - 479
• Main Authors: Pole, Nnamdi, Neylan, Thomas C., Best, Suzanne R., Orr, Scott P., Marmar, Charles R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germantown Periodicals Service Company 01.10.2003; Wiley; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Anxiety disorders. Neuroses; Biological and medical sciences; Blinking - physiology; Electromyography; emotion; Emotions; fear; Fear - psychology; fear-potentiated acoustic startle; Female; Galvanic Skin Response; Humans; law enforcement; Male; Medical sciences; Police; police officers; Post-traumatic stress disorder; posttraumatic stress disorder; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; PTSD; Reflex, Startle; Reproducibility of Results; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - etiology; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - psychology; Urban Population; Social environment; Human; Urban environment; Posttraumatic syndrome; Anxiety disorder; Policeman; Startle reflex; Stress; Electrodiagnosis; Symptomatology; Risk factor; Electromyography; Working condition
• ISSN: 0894-9867; 1573-6598
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1025758411370

We studied the effects of increasing threat conditions on self‐reported emotion, eyeblink electromyogram, and skin conductance responses to startling sounds in 55 police officers who endorsed a range of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) symptoms. We found that contextual threat affected both physiologic and self‐reported emotional responses. Greater PTSD symptom severity was related to greater physiologic responses under the low and medium but not under the high threat condition. The relationship between PTSD symptoms and physiologic responses was neither explained by self‐reported emotional responses nor preexisting reported exaggerated startle symptoms. Our results emphasize the importance of contextual threat and suggest that laboratory measures of startle improve upon self‐reported exaggerated startle alone in indexing PTSD symptom severity in urban police officers.