This first article in the series of three articles appearing in the journal on PTSD in Court concludes with discussion of complications related to comorbidities and heterogeneities, in particular. However, the estimate for malingered PTSD varies extensively, from 1 to 50%, so that the estimate is too imprecise for use in court without further research. Moreover, the possibility of malingered PTSD presents confounds. Polytrauma and comorbidities complicate these prevalence statistics. Once initiated, PTSD becomes prolonged in about 10% of cases. Also, traumatic exposure leads to traumatic reactions in about 10% of cases, with PTSD being a primary diagnosis for trauma. At the epidemiological level, individuals can expect trauma exposure to take place about 70% over one's lifetime. An eighth factor on dissociation seems applicable to the minority of people who express the dissociative subtype. Finally, research is providing support for a hybrid seven-factor model. There is a five-factor dysphoria model and two six-factor models that have been found to fit better the DSM-5 PTSD symptoms. Other four-factor models have been found that fit the data even better than that of the DSM-5.

PTSD symptoms are arranged into a four-cluster model, which has received partial support in the literature. There are 20 symptoms of PTSD in the DSM-5. The first part of the series of three articles on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Court to appear in the journal reviews the history of the construct of PTSD and its presentation in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition American Psychiatric Association, 2013) and the ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases, 11th Edition World Health Organization, 2018).

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