Wheels for Warriors: Motorcycle Riding for Reducing Veterans’ Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms

Abstract

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a disorder that affects people who have experienced a traumatic event and have lingering psychological aliments, as the name suggests. Veterans are at a high risk of suicide, as the VA National Suicide Data Report 2005–2016 demonstrates (“VA National,” 2018). Research into new PTSD interventions is critical as veteran suicide, social and familial dysfunction, and interpersonal obstacles, to which PTSD contributes, are threats to veteran well-being. This project involved designing an intervention for treating PTSD that would include veterans riding motorcycles to reduce their post-traumatic stress symptoms. Such an intervention did not exist in the current literature and given the propensity of veterans to engage in motorcycling, such an intervention was needed and long overdue. The intervention's intended size is 20–30 veterans diagnosed with PTSD and who ride motorcycles. Each ride will last for approximately one hour, and the intervention will consist of a total of two rides per week, over 12 weeks. The intended outcome was to create an intervention for veterans with PTSD that is engaging and beneficial when veterans dealt with their PTSD symptoms.