Alexithymia, Coping Styles and Traumatic Stress Symptoms in a Sample of Veterans Who Experienced Military Sexual Trauma.

The current study examined the association between alexithymia and coping styles (planning, positive reinterpretation and growth, social-emotion coping, and denial), and trauma symptoms in a clinical sample of 170 male and female veterans who experienced sexual trauma during military service. Denial was the only coping style positively associated with trauma symptoms, and it mediated the relationship between alexithymia and trauma symptoms. Alexithymia was negatively associated with planning. Likewise, alexithymia was negatively associated with social-emotional coping and with positive reinterpretation and growth. The results speak to the significant role that alexithymia has in predicting individual coping styles.

Difficulty identifying feelings predicts the persistence of trauma symptoms in a sample of veterans who experienced military sexual trauma.

The current study examined the prospective association between alexithymia and the persistence of trauma symptoms in a clinical sample of 175 male and female veterans who experienced sexual trauma during military service (military sexual trauma; MST). Trauma symptoms decreased significantly over the course of a specialized residential treatment program. Difficulty identifying feelings was related to persistence of the following trauma symptoms: overall symptoms, sexual abuse trauma symptoms, dissociative symptoms, and anxiety. Men exhibited more persistent symptoms overall, more persistent sexual problems, and more sexual abuse trauma symptoms compared with women (over and above controlling for symptoms at intake). The results speak to the significant role that difficulty identifying feelings has in the treatment of PTSD. In addition, the results suggest that MST has different implications for men compared with women. Specifically, men who were sexually abused in the military experienced greater persistence of symptoms compared with women, especially in the areas of sexual functioning.

Two-year follow-up of meniscal repair using a bioabsorbable arrow.

PURPOSE: The value of meniscal repair is well established. Several all-inside arthroscopic techniques have become available to achieve this goal. One such technique involves the use of a biodegradable polylactic acid tack, which has made repair technically easier to perform. This study evaluates the 2-year results of arthroscopic meniscal repair using this device. TYPE OF STUDY: Retrospective case series. METHODS: We reviewed charts of 38 patients who had undergone 39 meniscal repairs with the bioabsorbable arrow. All procedures were performed by one of 4 fellowship-trained sports medicine orthopaedic surgeons in 1 of 2 affiliated hospitals, with a minimum follow-up of 2 years. Review consisted of evaluation of patient records, interview, and clinical examination by an independent examiner. Lysholm and Tegner knee scores were recorded. Complications and clinical failure, defined as reoperation, were noted. RESULTS: The average age of the patients was 29.9 years. The ratio of medial to lateral meniscal repair was 5:1. Twenty-one patients underwent concurrent anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, and in this subgroup, there were no clinical failures. In the remaining group, isolated meniscal repairs in stable knees, the clinical failure rate was 7% (2 reoperations). Local soft-tissue complications occurred in 31.6% of patients, including 2 with arrow migration through the skin. These symptoms typically resolve over several months. CONCLUSIONS: The availability of sutureless all-inside absorbable techniques for meniscal repair has made the procedure technically easier to perform arthroscopically. In our patients, local complications related to device migration, device prominence, and soft-tissue inflammation associated with absorption of the device were common (31.6%). These complications were usually transient. We emphasize the importance of selecting the correct length of device so as to minimize these effects. As with other meniscal repair techniques, a higher success rate was found in knees undergoing concurrent anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Our results show a clinical success rate using an absorbable all-inside technique with an absorbable device comparable to reported results using established inside-out techniques.