A Nonrandomized Trial of Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy for Combat-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in a Deployed Setting.

For many decades, the U.S. military's general operational guideline has been to limit the use of trauma-focused treatments for combat and operational stress reactions in military service members until they have returned from deployment. Recently, published clinical trials have documented that active-duty military personnel with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be treated effectively in garrison. However, there are limited data on the treatment of combat and operational stress reactions or combat-related PTSD during military deployments. This prospective, nonrandomized trial evaluated the treatment of active-duty service members (N = 12) with combat and operational stress reactions or combat-related PTSD while deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq. Service members were treated by deployed military behavioral health providers using modified Prolonged Exposure (PE; n = 6) or modified Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT; n = 6), with protocol modifications tailored to individual mission requirements. The PTSD Checklist-Military Version (PCL-M) total score was the primary outcome measure. Results indicated that both groups demonstrated clinically significant change in PTSD symptoms as indicated by a reduction of 10 points or greater on the PCL-M. Participants treated with modified PE had significant reductions in PTSD symptoms, t = -3.83, p = .01; g = -1.32, with a mean reduction of 18.17 points on the PCL-M. Participants treated with modified CPT had a mean PCL-M reduction of 10.00 points, but these reductions were not statistically significant, t = -1.49, p = .12; g = -0.51. These findings provide preliminary evidence that modified forms of PE and CPT can be implemented in deployed settings for the treatment of combat and operational stress reactions and combat-related PTSD.

Consensus recommendations for common data elements for operational stress research and surveillance: report of a federal interagency working group.

Empirical studies and surveillance projects increasingly assess and address potentially adverse psychological health outcomes from the stress of military operations, but no standards yet exist for common concept definitions, variable categories, and measures. This article reports the consensus recommendations of the federal interagency Operational Stress Working Group for common data elements to be used in future operational stress research and surveillance with the goal of improving comparability across studies. Operational stress encompasses more than just combat; it occurs everywhere service members and their families live and work. Posttraumatic stress is not the only adverse mental or behavioral health outcome of importance. The Operational Stress Working Group contends that a primary goal of operational stress research and surveillance is to promote prevention of adverse mental and behavioral outcomes, especially by recognizing the preclinical and subclinical states of distress and dysfunction that portend a risk for failure of role performance or future mental disorders. Recommendations for data elements are divided into 3 tiers: core, supplemental, and emerging, including variable domains and specific measures for assessing operational stressor exposures, stress outcomes, moderating factors, and mediating processes. Attention is drawn to the emerging construct of stress injury as a generic term for subclinical operational stress, and to emerging data elements addressing biological, psychological, and spiritual mediators of risk. Methodologies are needed for identifying preclinical and subclinical states of distress or dysfunction that are markers of risk for failure of role performance and future clinical mental disorders, so that targeted prevention interventions can be developed and evaluated.