Violence associated with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder: The importance of anger

Abstract

The importance of anger with regard to violence among veterans with combat-related PTSD has received little attention. We previously proposed that in PTSD the activation of threat-related cognitive networks strongly potentiates anger in a positive feedback loop and that inhibitory controls on aggression can be overridden when PTSD and anger activation are conjoined. We predicted that violence would be intensified when combat-related PTSD was conjoined with anger. We used the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) public use data set, selecting the male combat theater veterans, which entailed 1,200 from the main survey (Study 1) and 259 from the clinical interview component (Study 2). Anger indices were constructed from NVVRS variables. PTSD was assessed by continuous symptom scores and by clinical diagnostic measures. Conjoined anger and PTSD was associated with greatly increased violence. PTSD was not associated with violence in the absence of anger. This result was obtained using alternative measures of PTSD and of anger in both the main survey and the clinical interview component. These findings call for reconceptualizing the association of PTSD and violence. Concerted attention should be given to anger as a risk factor for violence in the assessment and treatment of combat-related PTSD, and as an important portal of entry for treatment.