An Adjunctive Family Intervention for Individual Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Treatment

VA Office of Research and Development

Status: Completed

Conditions: Posttraumatic Neuroses

Treatments: Behavioral: Brief Family Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT02956434

MHBB-013-16F

IK2CX001589 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aims to test a brief family intervention (the BFI) to enhance individually-delivered PTSD treatment for Veterans.

Full description

The investigators will enroll pairs of Veterans and one adult family member who lives with them. Veterans will be beginning a course of PTSD-focused treatment at the Boston VA; Veterans' treatment will not be limited or changed by their participation in this study.

Family members will receive or not receive (depending on which Phase of the study they are recruited in) the BFI. The BFI consists of 2 sessions in which the family member meets one-on-one with a clinician to discuss PTSD, PTSD treatment, and how families can be most helpful to patients in treatment.

Veterans and family members will also be interviewed about their opinions and experiences regarding family-inclusive treatment for PTSD. Clinicians will be recruited and enrolled to obtain their information and feedback (via qualitative interviews), and to deliver the intervention in Phase II.

Enrollment: 40 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Veterans must have a diagnosis of PTSD and be beginning a course of Prolonged Exposure (PE) or Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) at the Boston VA.
• Must also have an eligible family member who is willing to participate.

Exclusion criteria

• Current diagnosis of unstable bipolar disorder, substance dependence, past or present psychosis, or organic mental disorder
• Clear and current suicidal risk
• Current participation in family/couples therapy

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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40 participants in 2 patient groups

Brief family intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will receive the BFI in this arm of the study. The BFI is a 2-session intervention for family members of Veterans who are beginning PTSD treatment.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Brief Family Intervention

No intervention

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will not receive the BFI in this arm of the study. They will be eligible for any usual support or programming for the families of Veterans.