A model of war zone stressors and posttraumatic stress disorder.

We present a theoretical model of field placement, war zone stressors (fighting, death and injury of others, threat of death or injury to oneself, killing others, participating in atrocities, harsh physical conditions and insufficiency of resources in the environment) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Theater veterans from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study were divided randomly into two subsamples of 599 each. The model was developed on the first subsample and cross-validated on the second using structural equation modeling. The model provides a theoretically and empirically satisfactory description of the anatomy of war zone stressors and their role in the etiology of PTSD, but it leaves unanswered important questions regarding the etiological role of insufficiency of resources in the environment.