Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the following questions. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering so...

Direction: Read the passage
carefully and answer the following
questions. Certain words are printed in
bold to help you locate them while
answering some of the questions.

In the public's eye, military men are still
the sole sufferers of PTSD. But research
shows that women are in some cases
twice as likely to develop the disorder.
Despite being far more vulnerable,
women are often misdiagnosed due to
cultural stereotypes, and there's a huge
gap in research on which kinds of
treatments work best for which kinds of
people. Studies and research programs
have been designed, until recently, to
understand men with PTSD. The same is
true for support systems and treatment
centers. In the legal system, women
who report PTSD from rape are less
likely to be believed than men who
report PTSD from combat. Research
shows that women are at a higher risk
of PTSD. While men experience more
traumatic events in their lives, women are, depending on which study you look
at, as much as twice as likely to develop
PTSD, but no one really knows why.
Pervasive male prejudice against women
is another factor that can diminish unit
cohesion for female soldiers. Because
women are less likely than men to
experience unit cohesion while serving
in the military, women are less likely to
develop the social support structures
that will help prevent them from
developing PTSD. For women, this
hesitation to self-identify as a sufferer of
PTSD could be even greater; historically,
female soldiers have struggled to be
counted as equals to men on the
battlefield. Women, stereotypically
considered to possess less emotional
fortitude than men, may be unwilling to
admit that they are suffering from PTSD
lest they appear to conform to this
stereotype.

That domestic bit has another face too:
Where men who've experienced trauma
might be able to take time off to recover,
women are expected to maintain their
domestic, caregiving roles, which make
it harder for women to address
symptoms of post-traumatic stress for
fear of "failing" at their roles as mother,
daughter and wife. "Gendered social
roles can compound the negative
impact," said Dawne Vogt, a research
psychologist at the Women's Health
Sciences Division of the National Center
for PTSD. "So they might have additional
stress when they're dealing with
something. "Technically, PTSD is largely
the same for men and women,
characterized by things like fear based
anxiety, sleep disturbance, flashbacks,
feelings of detachment and more. And
both men and women often experience
multiple conditions alongside PTSD. But
they seem to develop different sets of
additional problems. Women tend to
develop depression alongside their
PTSD, while men tend to tack on
substance abuse. What that means is that men with PTSD tend to show a
different profile than women do. Men
tend to lash out, showing anger,
hostility, explosiveness and
unpredictability. Women, often because
of their depression, tend to do the
opposite, becoming withdrawn and
turning to self harm. What is clear is that
women who return from combat, with
PTSD or not, often have a harder time
returning to their lives. According to a
report by the Departments of Veterans
Affairs, Defense, Labor and Housing and
Urban Development, "America's nearly
300,000 women veterans are put at risk
by a system designed for and dominated
by male veterans." This includes lack of
access to peer support, group therapy
and specialized mental health care for
things like PTSD. Recent changes made
by the United States Department of
Veterans Affairs have improved
treatment options for female veterans
living with PTSD, but there is still more
that needs to be done.

Women veterans are also more likely to
be unemployed than male veterans, and
at least twice as likely to be homeless.
On top of that, women veterans are
more likely to be single parents and
come back to dependents. But Vogt says
that nobody knows how this might
impact their PTSD, or which treatments
might work best. And it's not necessarily
clear that what works for veterans will
work for civilians either. Right now, for
example, most of the research on virtual
reality uses for treating PTSD focuses on
military men.Another challenge is that
until very recently, treatment for PTSD
has been more difficult for women than
men to obtain. Before rule changes were
enacted in 2010, only veterans who
encountered direct combat experience
qualified to receive disability payments
for PTSD. Because very few women are
placed on the front lines, very few were
eligible to receive free treatment for
PTSD. However, recent regulation changes have ended these stipulations, allowing women who
serve in any capacity to be eligible for
benefits. Even if female veterans are
eligible for these benefits, the quality of
the care a wartime PTSD sufferer
receives can vary widely. The United
States Department of Veterans
Affair(VA) pays disability benefits to
service men and women who have been
diagnosed with PTSD and also provides
these individuals with free health care.
But while mental health counseling that
comes directly from VA doctors is
completely free to veterans, there are
often long waiting lists for those who
need to be evaluated or treated.
Therapy provided by non-VA
professionals may not be covered by
health insurance. Access to mental
health professionals who have been
specially trained to treat wartime PTSD
is often difficult for those not living near
major urban centers.

On both the research level and the policy
level, more must be done to help the
women who have sacrificed so much for
their country Figuring out which
treatment works best for PTSD is still an
ongoing process for everybody, men and
women alike. But if researchers want to
help treat people equally, they'll need to
include more women.

According to the passage, what are the
reasons that treatment for PTSD has
been more difficult for women than men
to obtain?
I. Most of the research on virtual reality
uses for treating PTSD focuses on
military men.
II. Because very few women are placed
on the front lines, very few were eligible
to receive free treatment for PTSD as
per the previous rules which include that
only veterans who encountered direct
combat experience qualified to receive
disability payments for PTSD.
III. Women do not follow the regularities
properly that are needed in treatment of
PTSD and tend to recover slower than
man.