Prolonged exposure therapy for combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder: An examination of treatment effectiveness for veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

▶ Existing RCTs support the efficacy of PE; however, no studies have included meaningful numbers of OEF/OIF Veterans or meaning numbers of veterans receiving PE in normative healthcare contexts. ▶ The current study investigates 65 Veterans diagnosed with combat-related PTSD receiving PE. ▶ Treatment effect sizes were statistically significant and large. Both d-type and R2-type effect sizes are provided. ▶ Patient characteristics, including race, age, gender, baseline severity, and service connection disability were not meaningfully associated with treatment outcomes or the slope of outcomes over time. ▶ A quadratic time-in-treatment term, indicative of a steeper slope of improvement earlier in treatment, was statistically significant and accounted for a meaningful portion of variance in outcomes over time-in-treatment alone. ▶ Results indicate that PE in regular VA mental healthcare contexts can be as effective as when implemented in carefully conducted RCTs.