Trauma screening: when PC-PTSD-5 is enough, and when you need PCL-5

The PC-PTSD-5 (/screeners/pc-ptsd-5) is a five-item primary-care brief: it answers a single question — is there enough trauma signal to warrant a fuller look? Three or more 'yes' answers is the standard threshold. It is the right starting point when someone is unsure whether what they experienced 'counts'.

The PCL-5 (/screeners/pcl-5) is the 20-item DSM-5 severity scale. It is what we use when we already know there was a traumatic event and we need to size the symptom load and track change over time. A total of 31 to 33 is the provisional PTSD threshold; 50 and above is severe.

Take it in a place where you can pause. Have a regulating activity ready — a paced breath, a grounding sequence, a friend on the other end of the phone. If you find yourself dissociating mid-screen, stop, ground, and finish later. The score will still mean what it means.

A high PCL-5 score is not a diagnosis — it is a strong invitation to a structured assessment. In Cognitive Regulation work, we begin with stabilisation (sleep, somatic baseline, attention widening) before any trauma-focused processing. Trying to process before the system is regulated is what produces the 'I tried therapy and felt worse' story. We avoid that.