Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and health-related quality of life in OEF/OIF veterans.

PURPOSE: Comorbid post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression are often associated with negative physical and mental health outcomes in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) combat veterans. The current study examines the individual contributions of these two disorders on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in an OEF/OIF cohort. The study hypothesizes that PTSD and depression will each significantly predict lower physical and mental HRQoL even when controlling for overlapping symptoms: anhedonia, concentration, and insomnia. METHOD: Participants were 220 OEF/OIF combat veterans who completed an interview and self-report questionnaires examining study variables. All study hypotheses were tested with multiple regression analyses. RESULTS: PTSD and depression significantly contributed to mental and physical HRQoL, even after controlling for overlapping symptoms. However, while independent main effects of PTSD and depression, with and without overlapping symptoms, emerged for predicting mental HRQoL, no significant independent main effects emerged for predicting physical HRQoL. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest PTSD and depression contribute uniquely to the negative relationship with HRQoL, adding to the growing literature on distinctive and common effects of these disorders in OEF/OIF veterans. Results highlight the need to better understand the implications for assessment and treatment.

Role of risk factors proximate to time of trauma in the course of PTSD and MDD symptoms following traumatic injury.

Questions exist regarding whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are unique sequelae of trauma or a manifestation of a single form of psychopathology. Using latent growth modeling, we examined the role of risk factors occurring within 48 hours of the time of trauma on the course of PTSD and MDD symptoms over an 8-month period in 163 participants recruited from a level 1 surgical trauma center. Both PTSD and MDD symptoms showed peak prevalence by 1 month and significantly decreased over 7 months. Greater postinjury pain and PTSD symptoms (measured within 48 hours of trauma) predicted higher rates of both PTSD and MDD symptoms at 1 month. Other predictors were unique to each disorder. Results suggest that PTSD and MDD are related consequences of trauma.

Review of biological mechanisms and pharmacological treatments of comorbid PTSD and substance use disorder.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol/substance use disorder (A/SUD) are frequently comorbid. Comorbidity is associated with poorer psychological, functional, and treatment outcomes than either disorder alone. This review outlines biological mechanisms that are potentially involved in the development and maintenance of comorbid PTSD and A/SUD including neurotransmitter and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal dysregulation, structural differences in the brain, and shared genetic risk factors. The literature regarding pharmacological treatments that have been investigated for comorbid PTSD and A/SUD is also reviewed. Empirical data for each proposed mechanism and pharmacological approach is reviewed with the goal of making recommendations for future research. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder'.

Alcohol expectancies and social self-efficacy as mediators of differential intervention outcomes for college hazardous drinkers with social anxiety.

The current pilot study examined the roles of two cognitive factors - positive alcohol expectancies of social anxiety reduction and drink refusal self-efficacy relevant to social situations - in mediating greater reduction in alcohol behaviors by the Brief Intervention for Socially Anxious Drinkers (BISAD; n=21) compared to an alcohol psychoeducation (n=20) in a sample of college hazardous drinkers with social anxiety. Mediation analysis results indicated that decreased positive alcohol expectancies and increased drink refusal self-efficacy relevant to social situations accounted for an average of 67% of the variance in treatment outcomes as measured by total quantity of alcohol consumption, heavy drinking days and problems related to alcohol use in the past month. Study results may enhance the understanding of cognitive factors' role in alcohol treatment outcomes, which could in turn improve the efficacy of interventions aimed to reduce hazardous drinking and comorbid social anxiety.

Drinking refusal self-efficacy and tension-reduction alcohol expectancies moderating the relationship between generalized anxiety and drinking behaviors in young adult drinkers.

Despite the substantial comorbidity between generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and alcohol use disorders (AUD), little is known about contributing factors to this relationship. This lack of knowledge has limited the development of theoretical models explicating the interesting yet complex relationship between GAD and AUD. The current study examined the roles of generalized anxiety, tension-reduction alcohol expectancies, and drinking refusal self-efficacy in accounting for the variance of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related consequences in a sample of young adult drinkers (N = 474; 18-25 years of age, median age 19, 66% female) from a large, urban Midwestern university. Results showed that generalized anxiety level interacted with both tension-reduction alcohol expectancies and drinking refusal self-efficacy to predict alcohol consumption and alcohol-related consequences. Findings support the assessment of both alcohol-related consequences and alcohol consumption, and highlight the importance of drinking refusal self-efficacy, which is a currently underexamined variable. Study results also enhance the knowledge about the underlining mechanisms of GAD and AUD comorbidity, which facilitates the development of an empirically based theoretical paradigm for their relationship.

Alcohol expectancies and drinking motives in college drinkers: Mediating effects on the relationship between generalized anxiety and heavy drinking in negative-affect situations.

The current study tested the hypotheses that drinking to cope motives and alcohol expectancies of tension- and worry-reduction mediate the relationship between generalized anxiety (GA) and negative-affect heavy drinking in a cross-sectional sample of 782 college drinkers. As expected, structural equation modeling results indicated that alcohol expectancies mediated the relationship between GA and drinking to cope motives, and drinking to cope motives mediated the relationship between alcohol expectancies and heavy drinking in negative-affect situations. Unexpectedly, drinking to cope motives also mediated the relationship between GA and negative-affect heavy drinking. The model predicting negative-affect heavy drinking was tested in subsamples of 413 hazardous and 366 nonhazardous drinkers and did not differ structurally; however, omnibus measurement of model indirect effects was stronger for hazardous than nonhazardous drinkers. Finally, the results of a similar post-hoc model to predict general problem drinking support the specificity of the interrelationships among GA, cognitive mediators and to negative-affect drinking. These results inform cognitive-behavioral theories and interventions for comorbid GA and alcohol use problems.