Posttraumatic stress disorder in OEF/OIF veterans with and without traumatic brain injury

•Combat-veterans with PTSD and TBI endorse significantly higher PTSD scores than those with PTSD only.•Higher PTSD scores are due to more intense, but not more frequent, symptoms.•The PTSD + TBI group also endorsed higher overall anxiety and more functional limitations.•Further analysis indicated PTSD severity, and not TBI, was responsible for group differences.•Groups did not differ on additional psychopathology or self-report of PTSD symptoms or executive functioning.

Veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) are presenting with high rates of co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical presentations of combat-veterans with PTSD and TBI (N = 40) to those with PTSD only (N = 56). Results suggest that the groups present two distinct clinical profiles, with the PTSD + TBI group endorsing significantly higher PTSD scores, higher overall anxiety, and more functional limitations. The higher PTSD scores found for the PTSD + TBI group appeared to be due to higher symptom intensity, but not higher frequency, across PTSD clusters and symptoms. Groups did not differ on additional psychopathology or self-report of PTSD symptoms or executive functioning. Further analysis indicated PTSD severity, and not TBI, was responsible for group differences, suggesting that treatments implicated for PTSD would likely be effective for this population.