The purpose of this project is to develop an intervention to improve psychosocial functioning and quality of life for older Veterans with partial or full PTSD.
This project will develop, implement, and evaluate a group protocol geared toward restoring older Veterans to better, fuller functioning. This project will determine the feasibility and acceptability of such an intervention. The intervention developed will then be compared to a support group control condition. Primary outcomes are psychosocial functioning and quality of life, with PTSD and depressive symptoms as secondary outcomes. A complementary objective is to improve attitudes toward mental health treatment and to increase readiness for change and engagement in evidence-based psychotherapies, as appropriate. Results from this study will provide feasibility data for future development and testing of the intervention protocol.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
34
This intervention is to be developed during the study. It will likely include modules that provide anger management strategies, communication skills, and education about interpersonal relationships and social support. In addition, psychoeducation about behavioral activation and stress management will likely be included
The support groups will be process-oriented in nature with core elements manualized to facilitate consistency of the intervention. In particular, group leaders will facilitate a check-in with the group, and the agenda will be open to topics brought in by group members
VA Boston Healthcare System Jamaica Plain Campus, Jamaica Plain, MA
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Inventory of Psychosocial Functioning (IPF) - Romantic, Family, Friends/Socializing Subscales
The IPF is an 80-item self-report measure designed to assess functional impairment experienced by Veterans. Respondents rate how often they have acted a certain way over the past 30 days. Items are rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 ("never") to 6 ("always"). The IPF yields a total score (0-66) and scores for seven subscales: romantic relationships, family, work, friendships and socializing, parenting, education, and self-care functioning (lower indicates better functioning/less impairment). Respondents have the option to skip sections that do not apply to them. The IPF has excellent internal consistency reliability (overall alpha = .93) and the scale correlates with other self-report measures of quality of life and functional impairment, such as the QOLI (r = .59). Reporting on romantic relationships (range = 0-66), family (range = 0-42), and friends/socializing (range = 0-48) functioning subscales here. Higher scores indicate more impairment.
Time frame: Reporting on baseline and post-group assessment (assessed at the final group session, approximately 2.5 - 3 months after baseline)
Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI)
The QOLI is a 32 item self-report measure that assesses life satisfaction across 16 life domains (e.g., health, work, recreation). For each domain, the respondent rates how important the domain is on a 0-2 scale and how satisfied he or she is in this area of life on a 7-point scale. Satisfaction scores on the measure are weighted based on the respondent's rating of the importance of the life domain in order to achieve a total score with higher scores indicating higher quality of life. The measure was validated across a number of samples, including psychiatric inpatient and outpatient VA samples. Test-retest reliability was excellent over a one-month interval (r = .91) as was the internal consistency of the measure (alphas ranged from .86-.89). The measure also demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity with other measures of life satisfaction. T scores were used with range 0 - 100, Mean (of reference population) =50, Standard deviation = 10
Time frame: Reporting on baseline and post-group scores (assessed at the final group session, approximately 2.5 - 3 months after baseline)
Veterans Rand 12-item (VR-12) Health Survey
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The VR-12 is a 12-item scale that assesses the effects of physical and mental health on well-being, and is often used to assess quality of life. Item scores are used to compute two broad component scores: the physical component score (PCS) and the mental component score (MCS). The component scores are standardized T-Scores and the population standard for this measure was recently updated. Higher scores indicate better functioning. T scores were used with range 0 - 100, Mean (of reference population) = 50, Standard deviation = 10
Time frame: Reporting on baseline and post-group scores (assessed at the final group session, approximately 2.5 - 3 months after baseline)