Accomplishments of the National Center

The VA National Center for PTSD has set the international agenda for trauma and PTSD research and education. Over its history the Center has:

• Developed the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), the gold standard for assessing PTSD and other key assessment tools
• Conducted the first VA Cooperative Study on PTSD, involving 15 national sites, and the first study of PTSD treatment for female Veterans and Active Duty personnel, involving 12 sites
• Established the PTSD Resource Center and the PILOTS database, an online database of the Published International Literature on Traumatic Stress with over 40,000 citations
• Created the leading website on trauma and PTSD: www.ptsd.va.gov
• For providers, developed PTSD 101 Online Courses, an online curriculum focusing on issues related to war zone stress and PTSD and other Continuing Education opportunities.
• Produced manuals, including the Iraq War Clinician Guide and (with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network) the Psychological First Aid Field Operations Guide
• Created a VA PTSD Mentoring Program to facilitate sharing of good administrative practices between VA PTSD programs and the VA PTSD Consultation Program, which provides free PTSD consults to those working with Veterans.
• Disseminated information by producing the Clinician’s Trauma Update – Online, the PTSD Research Quarterly and the PTSD Monthly Update.
• Facilitated access to care with products like AboutFace: an online video gallery dedicated to Veterans talking about living with PTSD and how treatment turned their lives around and the award winning PTSD Coach mobile app.