Trauma and PTSD screener
The PC-PTSD-5, free and scored instantly
5 questions, about 1 minute. Your answers stay in your browser — we only see them if you ask us to.
Take the PC-PTSD-5
A five-question screener developed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs and used well beyond veteran care. It asks about the past month. Answer only if you feel able to — you can stop at any point.
Sometimes things happen to people that are unusually or especially frightening, horrible, or traumatic. In the past month, have you…
If you are thinking about harming yourself
You answered that you have had thoughts of being better off dead, or of hurting yourself. Please talk to someone now — it is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. This website is not monitored for emergencies.
Your result
0 / 5
This is a screening tool, not a diagnosis. It cannot tell you what you have. Only a conversation with a clinician can do that — and a low score does not mean your experience is not real or not worth help.
Would you like us to look at this with you?
We can send your answers to our clinical team and call you back — usually within one business day. Entirely optional; your result is yours either way.
Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5). Prins et al. (2016), US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. US federal government work — public domain.
If you need help right now, you do not have to finish this first. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is free, confidential and open 24 hours — call or text988. In immediate danger, call 911.
What the PC-PTSD-5 measures
A five-question screener developed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs and used well beyond veteran care. It asks about the past month. Answer only if you feel able to — you can stop at any point.
It is scored out of 5. Higher scores mean more of the experiences it asks about, over the period the questions cover — nothing more than that. The bands below are the published ones, and they describe a range, not a person.
| Score | Band | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0–2 | Below the screening cut-off | Your answers fall below the usual cut-off. That does not mean nothing happened, or that it does not still affect you — a screener only counts answers. |
| 3–5 | At or above the cut-off | Your answers are at or above the threshold where clinicians usually look further. It is a prompt for a conversation, not a diagnosis. |
What it cannot do
A screener cannot diagnose you. It asks a fixed set of questions and adds up the answers; it knows nothing about your history, your circumstances, or anything you were not asked. Two people with the same score can need very different things — and someone with a low score can still be struggling in a way that deserves help. If your result worries you, or if it does not match how you actually feel, that mismatch is worth a conversation on its own.
Where this instrument comes from
Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5). Prins et al. (2016), US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD.
We publish it here because it is free to do so: us federal government work — public domain. We have not reworded any item — a screener is validated as a specific set of words with a specific response scale, and changing them would make the scores above meaningless.
Wondering what your result actually means?
A clinician can tell you in one conversation what a score never will. Request an appointment online at any time, or call during office hours.
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