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Written Exposure Therapy for Veterans With SUD and PTSD

NCT05327504 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 170

Last updated 2026-02-19

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

The proposed project will evaluate the efficacy of written exposure therapy (WET) among Veterans engaged in substance use disorder (SUD) treatment, who present with co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While SUD treatment programs traditionally do not address PTSD, effective trauma treatments have been used successfully among those with substance use comorbidities. WET is a brief trauma-focused intervention shown to effectively treat PTSD. In a recent acceptability and feasibility pilot study among Veterans with co-occurring SUD and PTSD, results showed a decrease in PTSD symptoms among participants receiving WET. The goal of the present study is to improve outcomes for Veterans who present for SUD treatment with comorbid SUD/PTSD.

Conditions

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Written Exposure Therapy

Written Exposure Therapy is a 5 session treatment in which individuals write about their trauma event in a specified manner.

BEHAVIORAL

Neutral Topic Writing

Treatment as Usual augmented by 5 sessions of Neutral Topic Writing which involves writing about specific objects (e.g., what they have eaten over the past week) or events (e.g., what they did since yesterday) in detail without discussing thoughts or feelings.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • VA Office of Research and Development

    lead FED

Principal Investigators

  • Sarah Meshberg-Cohen, PhD MS BS · VA Connecticut Healthcare System West Haven Campus, West Haven, CT

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2022-09-26
Primary Completion
2027-05-12
Completion
2027-06-30

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT05327504 on ClinicalTrials.gov