Longitudinal cohort study demonstrates sustained symptom reduction in veterans with combat-related PTSD, suggesting specialized treatment programs maintain long-term therapeutic value.
This study reports on outcomes 2 years following completion of specialist veteran posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment programs in 2,223 (reduced to 1,508 at 24 months) consecutive admissions. Self-report measures of PTSD, anxiety, depression, anger, alcohol use, and general functioning were obtained at admission, 6, 12, and 24 months after admission. Significant improvements were demonstrated at 6 months, with smaller gains continuing through to 24-month assessment. Within subject effect sizes of around 0.8 were obtained for PTSD and around 0.5 for anxiety and depression. Although lack of a control group limits the extent to which improvements can be attributed to the treatment program, the data suggest that specialized treatment programs for combat-related PTSD continue to be of value.
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Creamer et al. (2006) studied this question.
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