A Policy Relevant US Trauma Care System Pragmatic Trial for PTSD and Comorbidity

Primary Aims and Hypotheses The primary aim of the UH3 period is to conduct a pragmatic randomized effectiveness trial of a collaborative care intervention targeting PTSD and comorbid conditions after acute care injury hospitalization. The investigation aims to determine if injured patients receiving the collaborative care intervention demonstrate significant reductions in PTSD symptoms when compared to control patients receiving care as usual. The study also aims to determine if the intervention patients when compared to control patients will demonstrate significant reductions in depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, and alcohol use problems, and improvements in physical function. The primary hypothesis is that the intervention group when compared to the control group will demonstrate significant reductions in PTSD symptoms over the course of the year after injury. Secondary hypotheses are that intervention patients when compared to control patients will demonstrate, significant reductions in depressive symptoms, significant reductions in alcohol use problems, and improved post-injury physical function. A Priori Secondary Analyses The study team hypothesizes that a subgroup of patients will have persistent PTSD symptoms that will not remit over the longitudinal course of the investigation, regardless of randomization to intervention or control group conditions. The study team also anticipates that readily identifiable baseline clinical, injury and demographic characteristics will be associated with persistent PTSD symptoms over time (e.g., higher PTSD symptom levels, greater pre-injury trauma exposure, intentional injury including firearm related injury mechanisms and other characteristics such as unemployment, as well as other baseline factors). Derived from previous randomized clinical trials, a cumulative burden index has been developed from these baseline characteristics and will be adapted for the current investigation. The study team proposes a series of secondary analyses that adjust for and stratify by baseline characteristics that put patients at risk for persistent symptoms. It is hypothesized that these secondary analyses will identify a subgroup of intervention patients who are not at risk for persistent symptoms and who will demonstrate clinically and statistically significant treatment responses when compared to patients with similar baseline characteristics in the control condition. The study team also hypothesizes that the treatment effects will be greatest at the 1-6 month post-injury time points that are temporally correlated with the period of active intervention.