Social rehabilitation for military veterans with traumatic brain injury, psychological trauma, and chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms: Intervention development and initial outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: A subset of military veterans who have experienced both traumatic brain injury and psychological trauma present with chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms and experience persistent obstacles to social reintegration. This project aimed to develop a novel treatment targeting the unmet social rehabilitation needs of these veterans. Initial intervention development, feasibility, and outcome data are explored. METHOD: Four treatment groups were conducted (n = 20). A treatment workbook was developed during Groups 1 and 2 (n = 10) and research data were collected from Groups 3 and 4 (n = 10). RESULTS: There was a 0% attrition rate across all groups with unanimous requests for additional sessions. T test effect sizes were analyzed with bias-corrected Hedges' g. Improvements were observed on measures of depression (p = .026, g = 0.73), empathic perspective taking (p = .007, g = 0.94), social cognition (p = .002-.678, g = 0.27-1.30 across multiple measures), social relationships (p = .007, g = 1.50), traumatic brain injury-related quality of life (social: p = .014, g = 0.68, emotional: p = .009, g = 1.28) and nonsocial executive functioning (p = .006, g = 0.54). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Preliminary evidence from this exploratory study suggests that targeting multiple layers of social competence using a combined psychotherapy and cognitive rehabilitation approach holds promise. Larger, controlled studies are needed to further evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of this intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

PTSD diagnoses among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans: comparison of administrative data to chart review.

To guide budgetary and policy-level decisions, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) produces quarterly reports that count the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with International Classification of Diseases, 9(th) Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; 309.81) in their electronic medical record administrative data. We explored the accuracy of VA administrative data (i.e., diagnostic codes used for billing purposes), by comparing it to chart review evidence of PTSD (i.e., medical progress notes and all other clinical documentation contained in the entire VA medical record). We reviewed VA electronic medical records for a nationwide sample of 1,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with at least one ICD-9-CM code for PTSD in their VA administrative data. Among veterans sampled, 99.9% had 2 or more ICD-9-CM codes for PTSD. Reviewing all VA electronic medical record notes for these 1,000 veterans for the full course of their VA health care history revealed that PTSD was diagnosed by a mental health provider for 89.6%, refuted for 5.6%, and PTSD was never evaluated by a mental health provider for 4.8%. VA treatment notes for the 12 months preceding chart review showed that 661 veterans sampled received a VA PTSD diagnosis during that 12-month timeframe, and of these 555 were diagnosed by a mental health provider (83.9%). Thus, the presence of an ICD-9-CM code for PTSD approximated diagnoses by VA mental health providers across time points (89.6% for entire treatment history and 83.9% for 12 months prior to chart review). Administrative data offer large-scale means to track diagnoses and treatment utilization; however, their limitations are many, including the inability to detect false-negatives.