Self-Help Intervention for Post 9/11 Veterans With Depression or PTSD Symptoms

Description

Many post-9/11 Veterans experience impaired psychosocial functioning, due in part to high rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). Less than half of post-9/11 Veterans with these conditions seek mental health treatment, with key barriers being a preference to self-manage and lack of time. Veterans also report difficulty navigating the overwhelming array of resources available. To address this gap for post-9/11 Veterans with unmet mental health needs, the investigators developed a self-help intervention to provide skills for healthy self-management as well as curated guidance on recovery support services that address mental health and broader whole-person functional challenges. The investigators will compare the self-help intervention to a control condition of standard printed resource/treatment information as is provided in usual care. The objective of this clinical trial is to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention (vs. control) at improving psychosocial functional impairment, mental health outcomes, and utilization of cognitive-behavioral coping skills and recovery support services. The investigators will also explore use of coping skills and recovery support services as potential mediators of the intervention. A total of 200 Veterans from the Syracuse and Durham VA healthcare system will complete validated measures in 6 assessments over 40 weeks.