Suicidal ideation in veterans enrolled in evidence-based psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder.

Psychological Services, Vol 20(3), Aug 2023, 465-473; doi:10.1037/ser0000598Suicidal ideation (SI) is a highly prevalent public health issue in the veteran population and is increasingly common in veterans who are diagnosed with other mental health conditions, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2020). The present study has an initial aim of examining changes in SI over treatment, and it is hypothesized that SI will decrease across PTSD treatments. A second aim is to examine the association of SI status with PTSD symptoms across treatment, and it is hypothesized that PTSD symptomatology will decrease at similar rates over the course of treatment for those who did and did not endorse SI at pretreatment. Participants included 717 (86.3% male) veterans who participated in outpatient treatment within a Veterans Affairs Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (VA PTSD) specialty clinic between July 2014 and December 2017. Descriptive analyses found that 37.2% of veterans endorsed SI at pretreatment, while 18.6% endorsed SI at posttreatment. The relationship between pre- and posttreatment SI was significant, χ²(1, N = 247) = 23.77, p
Source: Psychological Services - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research