New Project Harmony mediational study identifies the importance of interventions which target PTSD symptoms to help clients with PTSD+SUD reduce their substance use during and after treatment
This study examined whether reductions in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms help explain improvements in substance use among individuals receiving treatment for co-occurring PTSD and substance use disorders (SUD). Drawing on data from Project Harmony (n = 4046; age = 39.0 years, SD = 11.7), which pooled participant-level data across 36 randomized controlled trials, the study tested whether PTSD symptom improvement during and after treatment contributed to reductions in alcohol and drug use. PTSD reductions significantly mediated improvements in alcohol use severity during treatment for individuals receiving trauma-focused psychotherapy combined with alcohol use disorder (AUD) medication. Similar mediation effects were observed for several other trauma-focused and pharmacologic treatments. For drug use, PTSD improvements played a particularly important role both during treatment and in the months that followed. These findings underscore the importance of targeting PTSD symptoms in treatment planning and highlight the value of combining trauma-focused and medication-based approaches for individuals with co-occurring PTSD and SUD.
You can find the full paper here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/add.70126