Anxiety and related symptoms are common among veterans presenting to primary care. Research has shown that integrating mental health providers into primary care clinics, known in the Department of Veterans Affairs as primary care mental health integration, offers numerous benefits including increased access to care. However, the treatment of such conditions may be hampered by the primary care mental health integration model which operates using brief (30 min), time-limited (six to eight sessions) services that focus on treating presenting complaints or symptoms, rather than assessing and treating disorders. The present quality improvement project sought to examine the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary effectiveness of a brief transdiagnostic psychosocial intervention focused on the identification and elimination of safety aids (e.g., maladaptive cognitive and behavioral strategies). Veterans (N = 20) presenting with anxiety to a primary care clinic were assessed prior to and immediately after a brief (30 min), 6-week Safety Aid Reduction Treatment (START). Referral and retention rates suggest that START was acceptable and feasible to implement as 94% of veterans who initiated treatment completed treatment. Further, preliminary effectiveness data demonstrated that START was associated with meaningful reductions in both anxiety symptoms and the frequency of safety aid use from pre- to posttreatment (ps < .05). The present findings add to a growing body of research supporting the use of START as a transdiagnostic intervention for anxiety and related disorders. Pending future research, the current findings have important implications for improving access to evidence-based treatments in primary care settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Raines et al. (Thu,) studied this question.