PC-PTSD-5 Trauma & PTSD Screen

About the PC-PTSD-5

The PC-PTSD-5 was developed by Prins and colleagues for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a fast, reliable way to screen for posttraumatic stress in primary-care settings. It asks about five hallmark reactions to trauma — re-experiencing, avoidance, hypervigilance, emotional numbing, and guilt or blame — over the past month. In validation studies, a cut-point of 3 balanced sensitivity and specificity for probable PTSD.

How scores are interpreted

Score	What it suggests
0–2	Below Screening Threshold
3–5	Positive Screen

Source & license: Prins, A., Bovin, M. J., Smolenski, D. J., et al. (2016). The Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5): Development and evaluation within a veteran primary care sample. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 31(10), 1206–1211. The PC-PTSD-5 is in the public domain (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs).

When to seek professional help

If trauma reactions are disrupting your sleep, relationships, work, or sense of safety — or if you scored 3 or higher — a trauma-informed evaluation is a strong next step. If your screening results suggest you may benefit from professional support, our licensed therapists serve clients in person in Bentonville and via telehealth throughout Arkansas. Call (479) 259-1390 or book a free 15-minute consultation.

What this screener measures

The five questions you just answered map onto the core ways the body and mind respond after a frightening, dangerous, or deeply distressing experience. The PC-PTSD-5 does not ask about every symptom of posttraumatic stress; instead it focuses on five reactions that, taken together, do a good job of flagging when a fuller conversation with a clinician would be worthwhile. Understanding what each question is reaching toward can make your results feel less like a number and more like a starting point for self-reflection.

Re-experiencing covers the involuntary return of the event — nightmares, intrusive images, or the feeling of being pulled back into the memory when you did not choose to think about it. Avoidance describes the very human effort to keep away from people, places, conversations, or even internal thoughts that bring the event back. Hyperarousal and hypervigilance reflect a nervous system that has stayed on alert — being easily startled, watchful, on guard, or unable to settle. Numbing and detachment capture the opposite end of that spectrum: feeling distant, flat, or cut off from people and activities that once mattered. The fifth question asks about persistent guilt, shame, or blame — the loop of holding yourself or others responsible for what happened or what followed. These reactions are normal protective responses; they become a clinical concern when they persist, intensify, and interfere with daily life over time.

It is worth naming what the screener does not measure. It does not weigh how "bad" your experience was, and it makes no judgment about whether your reaction is justified — trauma is defined by its effect on you, not by how it might look from the outside. It does not measure resilience, the support you already have, or the progress you may have made. And it cannot distinguish posttraumatic stress from other experiences that share some of the same features, such as grief, depression, anxiety, or the ordinary aftermath of a recent stressful event. Those distinctions are exactly the kind of thing a licensed clinician is trained to sort through with you.

How to understand your results

This is a screen, not a diagnosis. A screening tool is designed to be sensitive — to catch as many people as possible who might benefit from a closer look — which means it will sometimes flag people who, after a thorough evaluation, do not meet criteria for PTSD. The reverse is also true: a low score does not rule out trauma-related distress, especially if your experience is recent, if you tend to minimize how you are feeling, or if avoidance is keeping certain memories out of reach on the day you take the quiz. Only a licensed clinician can make a diagnosis, and they do so through a careful interview, your history, and a fuller picture than any five questions can provide.

On the PC-PTSD-5, a total of 3 or higher is generally considered a positive screen — a signal that a trauma-informed evaluation is reasonable, not a verdict that you "have PTSD." A score below 3 simply means your responses today did not cross that threshold; if you are still struggling, that struggle is real and worth attention regardless of the number. Try to hold your result lightly. It is most useful as information you bring to a conversation, not a conclusion you reach instead of one.

A few things can shift a score from one day to the next: how recently the event occurred, how you happen to be sleeping, whether you are in a period of relative calm or fresh stress, and how openly you felt able to answer. Trauma responses are also not static — they can quiet down and then resurface around anniversaries, reminders, or major life changes. If your result surprised you in either direction, it can help to revisit the questions after a week or two, and to pay attention to how these reactions show up in your actual days rather than only in a questionnaire.

What to do next

If your screen was positive, or if trauma reactions are quietly shaping your sleep, your relationships, your work, or your sense of safety, the most useful next step is a conversation with someone trained to help. At ZipHealthy, a licensed clinical social worker meets with you for a free, confidential 15-minute consultation to talk through what you are noticing and what kind of support might fit. There is no pressure and no obligation — it is simply a chance to ask questions and decide, at your own pace, whether to move forward. You can book a free consultation online or call us at (479) 259-1390.

Trauma-focused care is well established. Several psychotherapies — including trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive processing therapy, prolonged exposure, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) — are recommended as first-line treatments for PTSD in the American Psychological Association’s Clinical Practice Guideline for the Treatment of PTSD. You can read more about how trauma develops and is treated at the National Institute of Mental Health and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. We offer EMDR therapy and trauma-informed individual therapy in person in Bentonville and through telehealth across Arkansas. If medication ever becomes part of the conversation, our therapists do not prescribe; we coordinate with your primary care provider or a prescriber so your care stays connected.

Some people prefer to take a smaller step first, and that is completely valid. Learning a few grounding and stabilization skills, understanding your "window of tolerance," and mapping the situations that tend to activate you can make day-to-day life steadier while you decide about therapy. If practical questions about the cost of therapy in Arkansas or what your visit might involve are part of the hesitation, our pricing and what-to-expect page and our Good Faith Estimate information lay out the details plainly.

Related screeners & support

Trauma rarely travels alone. Posttraumatic stress frequently overlaps with low mood, persistent worry, and difficulty managing strong emotions, and it can help to look at those threads separately. If you would like to explore further, you can take our anxiety self-screen (GAD-7) or our depression self-screen (PHQ-9), and read about our approaches to anxiety treatment and depression therapy in Northwest Arkansas. For skills-based support, our DBT skills group teaches concrete tools for distress tolerance and emotion regulation, and our group therapy offerings provide a supportive setting alongside others working on similar goals. Any group we run is governed by clear confidentiality expectations and shared group norms, so members can speak openly within an agreed framework of privacy and mutual respect — though, as with all group settings, confidentiality among members is a commitment we ask everyone to honor rather than a legal guarantee. You can see the full range of options on our behavioral health services hub.

Healing is possible...

Resilience & Recovery Companion Toolkit

Grounding and stabilization skills, trigger-mapping worksheets, window-of-tolerance education, and self-soothing practices for trauma recovery. A companion for the time between now and your first appointment.

Get the Toolkit — $44.99

Instant PDF download · Designed by our licensed clinicians

For educational and personal development purposes. Not a substitute for professional therapy.