Evaluating patterns and predictors of symptom change during a three-week intensive outpatient treatment for veterans with PTSD

Abstract

Specifically, examining treatment change during the intervention will allow us to determine whether patients plateau and whether shorter interventions would be worthwhile. [...]evaluating predictors of treatment response to determine who is most likely to benefit and how they benefit is critical for optimizing the dissemination of intensive treatments. [...]outreach coordinators worked with participants routinely to ensure that veterans were connected to appropriate aftercare resources (e.g., psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, vocational services, meditation groups, yoga classes). Several limitations should be taken into consideration when interpreting our results. Because all measures were conducted as part of routine clinical practice, we relied on the use of self-report measures (PCL-5, PHQ-9) as our primary treatment outcomes, rather than gold-standard clinician administered measures such as the CAPS-5. [...]we cannot evaluate the degree to which changes over time were due to non-specific treatment components (e.g., therapeutic alliance) versus specific treatment components (e.g., the use of cognitive restructuring techniques).