PTSD: Why Your Experience of Treatment Matters to Research

Every figure in this guide comes from a published source, linked where it appears and kept in CureCircle's evidence base with the source's own words. It is not medical advice. Read on 7 November 2026.

You never need to describe what happened to you. The questions are about living with PTSD and its treatment, and you choose what to say.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is treatable, yet many people wait years for help, and the treatment that works for one person does little for another. Which therapy helped, how long it took, what made it hard to keep going, and what daily life is like now are questions people living with PTSD answer best. Research on PTSD care needs those answers, from many people, told on their own terms.

How many people it affects

According to the WHO, "an estimated 3.9% of the world population has had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at some stage in their lives". The World Mental Health Surveys behind that figure found 5.6% among people exposed to trauma.

The records worth keeping

NICE's guideline on PTSD describes the care that leaves records:

• A screening questionnaire after some events, such as a validated, brief screening instrument at 1 month after a major disaster.
• Medicine, where chosen: venlafaxine or an SSRI such as sertraline for adults who prefer drug treatment, reviewed regularly.
• A care plan that follows you between services: NICE says the referring team should not discharge the person before a care plan has been agreed in the new service.

Letters from the services that treated you, and your own notes on symptoms and sleep, are enough to start. If you want copies of your records, ask the service that treated you.

What sharing it is worth

CureCircle values every contribution with a public benchmark built from what health data has sold for. A complete PTSD story with the records the guideline lists comes to about $93 per licence on the benchmark today. Every line and its source is on the PTSD page.

A licence is not a one-off sale: the same de-identified story can be licensed to several research teams, and you earn a share each time.

On your own terms

You decide what to share, and nothing asks for more than you choose to say. You read the de-identified summary before anything goes anywhere: no names, no place finer than a country, no exact dates, and you can withdraw at any time. How de-identification works, and what it cannot promise.

Start your story, or read what your health data is worth first.