PTSD Treatment Efforts for Returning War Veterans to be Evaluated

Joan Cook, Ph.D., of Yale University and colleagues have been awarded
funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to
evaluate the implementation of two evidence-based psychotherapies for
treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among veterans. The
grant addresses the NIH Challenge Grant topic “Strategies to Support
Uptake of Interventions within Clinical Community and Settings.”

Strategies for promoting evidence-based PTSD treatments in the
military are urgently needed as more and more soldiers returning from
Iraq and Afghanistan struggle with this disorder.  PE (prolonged
exposure) involves helping people confront their fear and feelings
about the trauma they experienced in a safe way through mental
imagery, writing, or other ways. In CPT (cognitive processing
therapy), the patient is asked to recount his or her traumatic
experience, and a therapist helps the patient redirect inaccurate or
destructive thoughts about the experience.

Dr. Cook and colleagues will partner with the Northeast Program
Evaluation Center, which monitors all VA mental health programming and
patient outcomes, and the National Center for PTSD, which oversees the
dissemination of PE and CPT nationally among VA providers. They plan
to monitor and assess the efforts of more than 250 mental health
providers in residential PTSD treatment settings via online
questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and on-site observations.

The NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research program is a
new initiative funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). This program will support research on 15
broad Challenge Areas that address specific scientific and health
research challenges in biomedical and behavioral research that would
benefit from an influx of significant two-year funds to quickly
advance the area.

More can be found on research topics at NIMH’s Challenge Grant webpage.