Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a heterogeneous psychiatric disorder, with symptom variation between patients.

We describe clinical and demographic characteristics of patients with PTSD based on real-world data.

This non-interventional, retrospective cohort study analysed de-identified electronic health records of patients from the Holmusk NeuroBlu database in the USA. Patients with ≥2 PTSD diagnoses captured in the database within 30 days between 2001 and 2020 were included. The index date was defined as the date of the first recorded PTSD diagnosis. In patients who were aged ≥18 years, demographic and clinical characteristics at baseline (index date ±14 days), in the 6 months prior to baseline and 12 months after baseline were described. Patients were stratified into four mutually exclusive subgroups according to treatment received: psychotherapy only, pharmacotherapy only, psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, and untreated. Natural language processing models were used to derive PTSD symptoms from unstructured clinician-documented mental state examination data. Data were analysed descriptively.

A total of 37,449 patients had ≥2 PTSD diagnoses within 30 days between 2001 and 2020; 32,875 patients received care at clinical sites with both inpatient/outpatient units; 25,507 patients received psychotherapy and/or pharmacotherapy as per further prespecified criteria, and 17,234 were ≥18 years old and included in this analysis. Most patients (84.9%) received psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy or both during the first year post-baseline. Mean age (SD) was 37.7 (12.4) years, 73.4% of patients were female and 59.6% were White. At baseline, 98% of patients had ≥1 psychiatric comorbidity; major depressive disorder (42.2%), substance use disorder (35%) and anxiety disorder (30.7%) were most frequently reported. Reported suicidal ideation/attempts were most frequent in the pharmacotherapy only group compared with other subgroups at baseline. The most frequently prescribed drug classes were antidepressants (51.8%), second-generation antipsychotics (29.9%) and anxiolytics (23.3%) at baseline. Trazodone, clonazepam, quetiapine and sertraline were the most frequently prescribed medications.

In the overall study population, most patients were female, with a high prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities. Demographic and clinical characteristics observed in this study varied across treatment subgroups. These insights may support patient-specific treatment planning and inform health-economic decision models in PTSD.