The best epidemiological evidence on violence and PTSD comes from studies of the U.S. general population and of post-9/11 Veterans in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. According to these studies, the prevalence of violence among individuals with PTSD ranged from 7.5% among US adults to 8.6% to 19.5% among post-9/11 Veterans (2-4). In the same studies, the prevalence of violence ranged from 2.0% in US adults with no mental health disorders and 3.0 to 6.4% among post-9/11 Veterans without PTSD.
There have been no comparable studies of PTSD and violence in other Veteran cohorts. However, a large epidemiological study of Vietnam and Vietnam-era Veterans that was conducted in the mid-1980s examined intimate partner violence (ranging from slapping and pushing to using a knife or gun), and found that 33.0% of Veterans with PTSD compared to 13.5% of those without PTSD reported intimate partner violence in the past year (1).