V E TE R AN S AFFAI R S & M I LITARY M E D I CI N E O UTLO O K
VA Research
THE VA AND CLINICAL TRIALS
The VA’s Cooperative Studies Program (CSP) is the linchpin for increasing veterans’ access to high-quality clinical trials.
Dr. Kathleen M. Chard, co-chair of Cooperative Study #591, “Comparative Effectiveness Research in Veterans with PTSD” (CERV-PTSD), is pictured with a research staff member modeling a therapy session.
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n EARLY IN THE 21ST CENTURY, AFTER YEARS of study and clinical work, mental health clinicians and investigators in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) helped to develop and validate the success of two highly effective treatments for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The first, prolonged exposure therapy, involves a patient’s vivid and repeated recollection of a traumatic event, until the emotional response to the event is diminished. The idea is for the patient to gradually extinguish overwhelming emotions associated with the traumatic memory. The second treatment, cognitive processing therapy, works in a similar way. With the guidance of a therapist, patients are taught to evaluate and change the upsetting thoughts they’ve had since their trauma – and in turn, to change their emotional response to these thoughts. This type of therapy, developed in the 1980s by an investigator who later joined the VHA, involves the appraisal of patients’ memories, dialogue, and introspection, and teaches coping skills to challenge negative or upsetting thoughts. While investigations have provided solid evidence that both prolonged exposure (PE) and cognitive processing therapy (CPT) are effective, there isn’t much evidence to
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By Craig Collins
