Pilot Project 3
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Improving Social Support in Veterans with PTSD
Veterans with PTSD often have substantial interpersonal problems and low social support from family, partners, and peers, resulting in problems with social reintegration. According to the erosion model of social support in PTSD, PTSD symptoms lead to a reduction in social support due to interpersonal difficulties, irritability with and feelings of detachment from others, and avoidance of social situations. However, few treatments exist to improve social support for Veterans with PTSD or to target the effects of the erosion model. The primary aim of this pilot project is to develop and evaluate a novel intervention for enhancing and improving social support and interpersonal functioning of Veterans with PTSD. The proposed research study will develop and evaluate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Enhancing Social Support for Veterans with PTSD (ACT-SS) in a set of pilot studies. The main pilot study will assess the feasibility and acceptability of the newly designed intervention, including recruitment and retention rates, fidelity monitoring, randomization proportion, staff and Veteran acceptance of the treatment, and Veterans' treatment adherence. We will explore the preliminary effects of ACT-SS on the severity of interpersonal difficulties, interpersonal difficulties, social functioning, quality of life, community reintegration, and PTSD severity. We will first conduct a small open trial of ACT-SS with 10 Veterans with PTSD to pre-test the manual guiding this treatment. We will then conduct a larger, randomized controlled pilot study comparing ACT-SS to Person Centered Therapy (PCT) for Veterans with PTSD (n=50). The larger pilot study will assess the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of the newly designed intervention. Participants randomized to either the ACT-SS condition or the PCT condition will both receive twelve 50-minute sessions. We will examine the effects of ACT-SS and PCT on interpersonal difficulties, social functioning, quality of life, community reintegration and PTSD severity.
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