Addressing the Health Concerns of VA Women With Sexual Trauma

The VA Women's Health Research Agenda underscores the importance of improving the safety and health outcomes of returning Veteran women. With greater numbers of women joining the military, the need for gender-specific VA-based interventions is increasingly important. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), intimate partner violence (IPV), and alcohol use are closely interrelated and significant concerns for women Veterans with a history of sexual trauma (ST). Given that screening for military sexual trauma (MST) is mandated within VAs, a computer delivered intervention has the potential to be easily integrated into the standard of care for women who screen positive for MST and/or other lifetime STs, increasing the identification of high-risk women Veterans. This intervention will provide a computer-based intervention on a VA issued laptop that could improve delivery service and fill a healthcare gap for a vulnerable Veteran population.

The long-term goal of the project is to make a significant impact on advancing health services research by introducing and testing a novel and potentially powerful service tool that may improve service delivery to address the co-occurring health concerns for VA women with lifetime ST. The intervention, Safe and Healthy Experiences (SHE), a brief modular, computer-based intervention, will target interrelated health risks for women Veterans with lifetime ST (i.e. alcohol misuse, IPV, and PTSD). SHE will provide individualized assessment, feedback, and referrals for women Veterans with lifetime ST. The intervention is based on motivational interviewing (MI), a well-defined intervention strategy that has yielded particularly promising results in a range of clinical issues, including interpersonal violence, and a range of patient populations, including male and female Veterans. MI is a collaborative and non-confrontational approach that emphasizes increasing a participant's awareness of successful steps towards well-being. MI is consistent with an empowerment model, which is a highly recommended intervention model for victimized women and both MI and an empowerment model converge on important principles for intervening with victimized women.

Findings from the study will provide the necessary groundwork to examine the efficacy of SHE in a future, large clinical trial. If the SHE intervention is found to be feasible, acceptable and efficacious in improving outcomes for women Veterans with lifetime ST, the ultimate goal would be for the program to be integrated into clinical care and widely disseminated. There are two phases of research directed toward these aims: 1) develop and refine an integrated screening and behavior intervention for VA women with lifetime ST in a brief modular computer-based format that can be administered in a VA primary care setting, and 2) collect data on the feasibility, acceptability, and initial efficacy of the intervention in improving the health of VA women, and increasing utilization of treatment and resources.

The study aims are to:

1. Develop the preliminary computer-based intervention, incorporating information gained in informant interviews.
2. Perform a small open trial (n = 20) of SHE to assess feasibility of recruitment of target population and acceptability of intervention and study procedures.
3. Conduct an initial randomized control trial in a sample of 150 women Veterans who screen positive for lifetime sexual trauma (ST) and have at least one risk factor (i.e., screen positive for intimate partner violence (IPV), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and/or heavy drinking) to demonstrate the feasibility of SHE and the acceptability of SHE via participant report of ease of use, helpfulness, and overall satisfaction.
4. Examine preliminary evidence for the hypotheses that, relative to the control condition, screening and referral only (SR), SHE will result in: