Families are equipped to best prepare and circumvent crisis when they possess the understanding “triggers” are signals that proceed the worsening of a loved one’s symptoms of mental illness. Once families are engaged, they are better equipped and possess a “toolkit” or a wide-ranging supply of resources at their disposal when their loved one requires a certain level of service, how to get services, and ultimately they are ready to navigate the mental health care system. Family engagement is essential for families to identify symptoms, manage treatments and side effects of medications, and evaluate effectiveness of these treatments with the aim of the family attaining a high-quality of life. Family engagement is central for families who desire to maintain and restore health outcomes of not only their loved ones diagnosed with a mental illness, but the family as a whole.
The Department of Defense(DOD) reported that today’s service member are more likely to be diagnosed with PTSD. Cohen, Gama, Betrothal, Kim, Mar & Seal (2010) reported that 35% of Iraq and Afghanistan service members received a mental health diagnosis, the most common diagnosis was post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The highest rates of PTSD were in veterans 15-24 years of age (24%), male (22%), white (21.6%), married (26.4%), enlisted (22.5%) and multiple deployments (23.7%). The service members with PTSD utilized other health related VA services 71-170% more than other service members without a diagnosis of PTSD (Cohen, et al., 2010).
Currently, few evidence based treatment programs are available to veterans with PTSD because treatments are not routinely and consistently implemented in either mental health or primary care settings (Cook & Stirman, 2015). This emerging science, known as implementation science, identifies a gap that exists between practice and research across health care settings in a specific health area. As a result, a priority focus emerged in the DOD and other international organizations in PTSD and trauma care, for the training and delivery of education and evidence based treatments to be disseminated in service organizations for PTSD.
Ruzek & Rosen (2009) conducted a review of the literature about the factors including practitioner factors, training factors, innovation factors, system factors, adherence versus local modification of protocols, collaboration with end users, that influence the dissemination of evidence based treatments for PTSD in service and delivery organizations. The authors concluded that the dissemination of EBT for PTSD will involve resources to train practitioners, monitor dissemination, delivery, and realistic timeframes will be necessary to adequately equip the practitioners and infrastructure to sustain these changes in care deliveries.
The main challenges for caregivers of veterans with PTSD are understanding and knowing worsening symptoms of PTSD, knowing where and how to obtain PTSD services, how to evaluate the effectiveness of their loved one’s PTSD care, and successfully knowing how to manage treatment plans for optimal outcomes.
I am hopeful that this research supports that PTSD treatments for service members and veterans requires military family engagement. My hypothesis: military family engagement, like civilian family engagement, is essential for high functioning outcomes when a service member or veteran is diagnosed with a mental illness and wants evidence based treatment programs.
