Treating Specific Groups: Veterans

Essential Information and Guidelines

• Iraq War Clinician Guide (IWCG)
  This manual, developed with the Department of Defense, addresses the unique needs of Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Appendix J has 10 separate educational handouts.
• Treatment of the Returning Iraq War Veteran
  From the Iraq War Clinician Guide. Discusses treatments for PTSD for veterans just returning from the Iraq war as opposed to Vietnam and other veterans, in a VA setting.

Recognition and Assessment of PTSD

• The Returning Veteran of the Iraq War: Background Issues and Assessment Guidelines
  From the Iraq War Clinician Guide. Contains clinical information on types of stressors Veterans of the Iraq War will have encountered. Discusses comprehensive assessment for symptoms and functional impairment.
• Deployment Risk and Resilience Inventory-2 (DRRI-2) Measures
  List of Deployment Risk and Resilience Inventory (DRRI-2) scales.
• PTSD in Iraq War Veterans: Implications for Primary Care
  From the Iraq War Clinician Guide. Discusses what primary care providers should know about trauma and PTSD, especially among soldiers returning from Iraq.
• Military Culture
  This PTSD 101 online course presents important information on military culture. Also discusses programs and interventions to help prevent combat stress with implications for assessment and treatment.

Treating Combat Stress: PTSD and Co-Occurring Problems

• Combat Stress Injuries
  This PTSD 101 online course presents a model for discriminating normal, adaptive responses to combat stress from those responses that entail injury to the mind and brain.
• Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD: Focus on Veterans
  Provides background information about traumatic brain injury and how it relates to PTSD. Includes implications for diagnosis and treatment.
• Report of Consensus Conference: Practice Recommendations for Treatment of Veterans with Comorbid Substance Use Disorder and PTSD (PDF)
  Recommendations from multidisciplinary workgroup. This PDF file may be printed and used as a handout.
• Traumatic Grief: Symptomatology and Treatment for the Iraq War Veteran
  Describes traumatic grief and distinguishes between normal and pathological grief. Discusses the assessment and treatment of acute and complicated grief in returning Iraq War Veterans.

Unique Service Experiences

• Treatment of Medical Casualty Evacuees
  From the Iraq War Clinician Guide. Discusses how men and women evacuated from the war zone due to physical injury are at higher-risk than other soldiers for development of PTSD and other trauma-related problems. Offers advice on comprehensive care.
• Casualty and Death Notification
  Describes procedure for professional counselors to deliver compassionate family notification of casualty or death.
• Peacekeepers and Traumatic Stress
  Discusses risk of trauma in peacekeeping situations, prevalence of PTSD in peacekeepers, and risk and resiliency factors.

Military Sexual Trauma

• Military Sexual Trauma
  This PTSD 101 online course defines sexual harassment and assault and provides prevalence rates for such events in the military. Presents mental health consequences and treatment themes.
• Military Sexual Trauma: Issues in Caring for Veterans
  Find out what military sexual trauma is, how common it is, and what you can do about it.

Women-Specific Concerns

• Traumatic Stress in Female Veterans
  Discusses stressors faced by female Veterans and reviews research on coping and VA changes in services for women.
• Women Who Served in Our Military: Insights for Interventions
  A video to help providers in their work with female Veterans.

Resources

• The New Warrior: Combat Stress and Wellness
  A video that addresses the unique issues faced by service members deployed for the global war on terror.
• Web Links: Military
  Links to a wide variety of military resources, such as military branches, military family programs, and Veterans service organizations (VSOs).