Veterans health administration leads the way in population mental health science: Commentary on Dodge et al. (2024).

Recently, Dodge et al. (2024) published an article in offering recommendations to the mental health field for changing from an individual-level to a population-level focus. These recommendations included scaling up evidence-based programs, innovating and evaluating population-level interventions, and creating a primary system of care to promote mental health and well-being.

On the concordance between CAPS-5 and PCL-5 scores.

As reported in this journal, Resick and colleagues (2023) investigated discrepancies between scores from two widely used PTSD measures: the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5; Weathers et al., 2013) and the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5; Weathers et al., 2013), a clinician-rated structured interview and a self-rated questionnaire, respectively.

State of the Science: Written Exposure Therapy for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Although there are effective psychotherapies available for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), brief treatments for PTSD are needed to expand the reach of treatment. Written exposure therapy (WET) is a brief treatment that has the potential to fill an important need in PTSD treatment and has a rapidly expanding evidence base to support its use. In this paper we provide information on how WET was developed, and we present proposed underlying mechanisms of the treatment and evidence supporting the underlying mechanism.

Firearm screening and intervention beliefs and practices among U.S. Air Force (USAF) mental health providers and behavioral health technicians.

We examined beliefs and practices regarding firearm assessment and lethal means safety counseling (LMSC) among U.S. Air Force (USAF) mental health providers (MHPs) and behavioral health technicians (BHTs).

Session-level effects of cognitive processing therapy and prolonged exposure on individual symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder among U.S. veterans.

Objective: To compare the course of change in individual posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms during prolonged exposure therapy (PE) and cognitive processing therapy (CPT).

Method: We analyzed data from a previously published randomized clinical trial comparing PE and CPT among male and female U.S.

Developing an individualized treatment rule for Veterans with major depressive disorder using electronic health records.

Efforts to develop an individualized treatment rule (ITR) to optimize major depressive disorder (MDD) treatment with antidepressant medication (ADM), psychotherapy, or combined ADM-psychotherapy have been hampered by small samples, small predictor sets, and suboptimal analysis methods. Analyses of large administrative databases designed to approximate experiments followed iteratively by pragmatic trials hold promise for resolving these problems. The current report presents a proof-of-concept study using electronic health records (EHR) of n = 43,470 outpatients beginning MDD treatment in Veterans Health Administration Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PC-MHI) clinics, which offer access not only to ADMs but also psychotherapy and combined ADM-psychotherapy.

Alcohol consumption and dependence risk among male and female Veterans: Trajectories and predictors.

Background: With few exceptions, previously conducted research on hazardous drinking among Veterans has employed samples in which the majority of participants identify as male. In addition, past studies have solely focused on alcohol consumption, rather than associated risk for dependence. In this study, we expanded upon the extant literature by investigating sex differences in trajectories and predictors of change in alcohol consumption and dependence risk among post-9/11 Veterans.

Is adequate dose adequate? An examination of the impact of psychotherapy on posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms utilizing Veterans Health Administration medical records.

Prior studies on individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) defined an adequate dose of psychotherapy as receiving at least nine sessions within a 15-week period. Yet, few studies have examined whether this definition of adequate dose is associated with meaningful change in PTSD symptoms over an extended period. To examine whether an adequate dose of individual or group psychotherapy was associated with PTSD symptom improvement, we identified mental health outpatient visits in the electronic medical record for a cohort of veterans enrolled in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) services ( = 1,649) across 5 years.

Properties of Stereocomplex PLA for Melt Spinning.

Fibers made from biopolymers are one solution for conserving both resources and the environment. However, these fibers currently have limited strengths, which limit their use for textile applications. In this paper, a biopolymer stereocomplex poly(-lactide) (scPLA) formation on a technical scale of high-molecular-weight poly(D-lactide) (PDLA) and poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) is presented.

Trauma exposure and transdiagnostic distress: Examining shared and posttraumatic stress disorder-specific associations.

We examined transdiagnostic and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-specific associations with multiple forms of trauma exposure within a nationwide U.S. sample (N = 1,649, 50.

Design of a hybrid implementation effectiveness cluster randomized controlled trial of delivering written exposure therapy for PTSD in underserved primary care settings.

Introduction: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) results in substantial costs to society. Prevalence of PTSD among adults is high, especially among those presenting to primary care settings. Evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) for PTSD are available but dissemination and implementation within primary care settings is challenging.

The PTSD Criterion A debate: A brief history, current status, and recommendations for moving forward.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Criterion A, also known as the "stressor criterion," has been a major source of debate ever since PTSD was added to the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980. Since then, the traumatic stress field has held an ongoing debate about how to best define Criterion A and the events that it covers. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent race-based incidents, the Criterion A debate has been reinvigorated.

An Item Response Theory Analysis of the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for Among Veterans.

We used item response theory (IRT) analysis to examine Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for (CAPS-5) item performance using data from three large samples of veterans (total = 808) using both binary and ordinal rating methods. Relative to binary ratings, ordinal ratings provided good coverage from well below to well above average within each symptom cluster. However, coverage varied by cluster, and item difficulties were unevenly distributed within each cluster, with numerous instances of redundancy.

An empirical investigation of definitions of subthreshold posttraumatic stress disorder.

Subthreshold posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has long been recognized as an important construct that identifies a subgroup of individuals who report significant PTSD symptoms and associated disability but do not endorse enough symptoms to meet the criteria for a full PTSD diagnosis. Different investigators have defined subthreshold PTSD in various ways, making it difficult to interpret findings across studies. To address this problem, we systematically compared individuals who met criteria for nine different subthreshold PTSD definitions with individuals diagnosed with either full PTSD or no PTSD (i.