NCT05327504

Written Exposure Therapy for Veterans With SUD and PTSD

Written Exposure Therapy (WET) as a Brief Trauma Treatment for Veterans With Co-occurring Substance Use Disorders and PTSD

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 170 (estimated)
• Sponsor: VA Office of Research and Development · Federal
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The proposed project will evaluate the efficacy of written exposure therapy (WET) among Veterans engaged in substance use disorder (SUD) treatment, who present with co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While SUD treatment programs traditionally do not address PTSD, effective trauma treatments have been used successfully among those with substance use comorbidities. WET is a brief trauma-focused intervention shown to effectively treat PTSD. In a recent acceptability and feasibility pilot study among Veterans with co-occurring SUD and PTSD, results showed a decrease in PTSD symptoms among participants receiving WET. The goal of the present study is to improve outcomes for Veterans who present for SUD treatment with comorbid SUD/PTSD.

Detailed description

This study is a randomized clinical trial within a Substance Use Disorder (SUD) specialty clinic to evaluate whether treatment as usual (TAU) plus Written Exposure Therapy (WET) is superior to TAU augmented by a neutral topic writing condition on both PTSD and addiction outcomes for Veterans in SUD treatment. Veterans with a current diagnosis of SUD and comorbid PTSD will be randomized to either WET plus TAU or TAU augmented by a neutral topic writing condition. During the first writing session, participants will be asked to write about either a personal traumatic experience (WET) or a neutral topic (control). In sessions 2 through 5, participants will again meet with the study therapist for 45 minutes (maintaining the same writing condition as assigned in session one). Measures of trauma symptoms, distress, and mood will be collected at each writing session, with additional assessments at baseline, at post-treatment (following 5 writing sessions), 8-weeks, and 12-weeks post-baseline assessment. The primary aim of this study is to examine whether WET augmentation of TAU improves trauma symptoms for Veterans with SUD and PTSD who are receiving outpatient SUD treatment compared to TAU with a neutral writing control. The secondary aim will examine whether WET improves SUD outcomes for Veterans with comorbid PTSD compared to TAU with a neutral writing control. If results prove promising, they will support WET as an effective brief, cost efficient, easy to disseminate, adjunct to current SUD treatment for Veterans with comorbid PTSD.

Conditions

• Substance Use Disorders
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Written Exposure Therapy	Written Exposure Therapy is a 5 session treatment in which individuals write about their trauma event in a specified manner.
BEHAVIORAL	Neutral Topic Writing	Treatment as Usual augmented by 5 sessions of Neutral Topic Writing which involves writing about specific objects (e.g., what they have eaten over the past week) or events (e.g., what they did since yesterday) in detail without discussing thoughts or feelings.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-09-26
• Primary completion: 2027-05-12
• Completion: 2027-06-30
• First posted: 2022-04-14
• Last updated: 2026-02-19

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States