A Randomized Controlled Trial of Coaching Into Care With VA-CRAFT to Promote Veteran Engagement in PTSD Care

Summary

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) afflicts many war Veterans, but often they are reluctant to seek help despite availability of effective treatments. Family members are key sources of support who can help encourage such Veterans to initiate mental health services. Toward that goal, VA provides telephone coaching to family members through its Coaching Into Care (CIC) program to help get their Veterans into care. While CIC enjoys high caller satisfaction, it has shown only modest success getting Veterans into care. Blended interventions that include professional support and technology-based interventions offer promise for improving effectiveness of services. Therefore, this study tests an intervention that blends CIC calls with a web program called VA Community Reinforcement and Family Training (VA-CRAFT). VA-CRAFT is a translation of an empirically-validated model intended to help Veterans by training their family members to effectively promote care-seeking. If successful, this approach will support families and help more Veterans receive needed mental health care for PTSD.

Conditions

• Stress Disorders, Post-traumatic

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

CIC+VA-CRAFT

CIC+VA-CRAFT consists of four 45-min. telephone coaching calls over 8-12 weeks, delivered by a coach following a manual, while participants are completing the VA-CRAFT for PTSD web-based course.

BEHAVIORAL

CIC

Coaching Into Care is an existing national VA program that provides telephone consultation and coaching to family members of Veterans with mental health needs who want to help connect them with mental health care by providing referrals, educational information, and a unique coaching service to help callers talk to their Veterans about their decision to seek care.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center

  collaborator FED

• Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center

  collaborator FED

• VA Office of Research and Development

  lead FED

Principal Investigators

• Eric R Kuhn, PhD · VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA

• Steven L. Sayers, PhD · Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-04-01

Primary Completion

2026-08-31

Completion

2026-08-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations