A Policy Relevant US Trauma Care System Pragmatic Trial for PTSD and Comorbidity

Overview

The overarching goal of this UH2-UH3 proposal is to work with the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory to develop and implement a large scale, cluster randomized pragmatic clinical trial demonstration project that directly informs national trauma care system policy targeting injured patients with presentations of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and related comorbidity. Each year in the United States (US), over 30 million individuals present to trauma centers, emergency departments, and other acute care medical settings for the treatment of physical injuries. Multiple chronic conditions including enduring PTSD, alcohol and drug use problems, depression and associated suicidal ideation, pain and somatic symptom amplification, and chronic medical conditions (e.g., hypertension, coronary artery disease, diabetes, and pulmonary diseases) are endemic among physical trauma survivors with and without traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Evidence-based, collaborative care/care management treatment models for PTSD and related comorbidities exist. These care management models have the potential to be flexibly implemented in order to prevent the development of chronic PTSD and depressive symptoms, alcohol use problems, and enduring physical disability in survivors of both TBI and non-TBI injuries; care management models may also be effective in mitigating the impact of the acute injury event on symptom exacerbations in the large subpopulation of injury survivors who already carry a substantial pre-injury burden of multiple chronic medical conditions.

Primary Aims and Hypotheses The primary aim of the UH3 period is to conduct a pragmatic randomized effectiveness trial of a collaborative care intervention targeting PTSD and comorbid conditions after acute care injury hospitalization. The investigation aims to determine if injured patients receiving the collaborative care intervention demonstrate significant reductions in PTSD symptoms when compared to control patients receiving care as usual. The study also aims to determine if the intervention patients when compared to control patients will demonstrate significant reductions in depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, and alcohol use problems, and improvements in physical function. The primary hypothesis is that the intervention group when compared to the control group will demonstrate significant reductions in PTSD symptoms over the course of the year after injury. Secondary hypotheses are that intervention patients when compared to control patients will demonstrate, significant reductions in depressive symptoms, significant reductions in alcohol use problems, and improved post-injury physical function. A Priori Secondary Analyses The study team hypothesizes that a subgroup of patients will have persistent PTSD symptoms that will not remit over the longitudinal course of the investigation, regardless of randomization to intervention or control group conditions. The study team also anticipates that readily identifiable baseline clinical, injury and demographic characteristics will be associated with persistent PTSD symptoms over time (e.g., higher PTSD symptom levels, greater pre-injury trauma exposure, intentional injury including firearm related injury mechanisms and other characteristics such as unemployment, as well as other baseline factors). Derived from previous randomized clinical trials, a cumulative burden index has been developed from these baseline characteristics and will be adapted for the current investigation. The study team proposes a series of secondary analyses that adjust for and stratify by baseline characteristics that put patients at risk for persistent symptoms. It is hypothesized that these secondary analyses will identify a subgroup of intervention patients who are not at risk for persistent symptoms and who will demonstrate clinically and statistically significant treatment responses when compared to patients with similar baseline characteristics in the control condition. The study team also hypothesizes that the treatment effects will be greatest at the 1-6 month post-injury time points that are temporally correlated with the period of active intervention.