With the continuing military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of returning military personnel from these war zones is increasing. Military personnel returning home following deployment are at significant risk for a wide variety of impairments in psychosocial functioning and psychiatric symptoms. In addition, family members of returning military personnel, and particularly marital/romantic partners also experience significant levels of distress and impairment. Relatively few studies have focused on reduction of these impairments among unselected samples of returning military personnel, and no previous study has specifically focused intervention efforts on the family system of returning personnel. This project seeks to address these needs by developing a brief, easily administered, family-based intervention for returning military personnel and their partners. More specifically, the current project proposes to adapt the Family Intervention Telephone Tracking (FITT) intervention, previously developed to facilitate adaptation among patients and spouses experiencing other types of major transitional events, to the transition of soldiers and marines returning home following war zone deployment. As currently conceptualized, this adapted intervention Family Intervention Telephone Tracking-Deployment Readjustment (FITT-DR) will consist of 1 meeting with the couple followed by a series of telephone calls to the returning personnel and his/her partner. These calls will focus on monitoring and problem-solving targeted to specific areas identified as important issues facing returning military personnel and their significant others. More specifically, the overall aim of this proposal is to further develop the FITT-DR intervention and to collect preliminary data on the efficacy of this intervention program. We propose to: 1. Develop a comprehensive and clinically relevant manual for the FITT-DR intervention. 2. Develop, implement and evaluate a provider training program. 3. Develop and test the reliability and validity of adherence and competence rating scales to evaluate providers'adherence to the intervention manual and their competence in delivering the intervention. 4. Conduct a randomized controlled pilot study in a sample of returning military personnel and their partners to: a) assess the feasibility and acceptability of the proposed intervention, and b) to provide an estimate of effect size of the efficacy of FITT-DR in comparison to treatment as usual reducing: a) impairments in psychosocial functioning and b) psychiatric symptoms. This pilot study will lay the groundwork for a larger clinical trial evaluating this new intervention for returning military personnel.
| LaFrance Jr, W C; Keitner, G I; Papandonatos, G D et al. (2010) Pilot pharmacologic randomized controlled trial for psychogenic nonepileptic seizures. Neurology 75:1166-73 |
