Clinical Trials Recruiting Combat Veterans

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, plan to compare a combination of imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), and prolonged exposure therapy (PE) with supportive-care therapy in 60 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with war-related nightmares and insomnia. PE, a widely used PTSD treatment, involves repeated recounting of trauma memories and therapist-guided discussions of thoughts and emotions the memories evoke. The researchers hope the combined treatments will improve both nighttime and daytime symptoms of PTSD.

Researchers at 13 VA medical centers nationwide are conducting a collaborative, placebo-controlled trial of the medication prazosin. They hope to enroll 320 veterans with war-zone, trauma-induced PTSD. They will compare the efficacy of prazosin or a placebo on nightmares, sleep disturbance, and global clinical status for 10 weeks; they will assess the same outcome measures after 16 additional weeks of maintenance treatment. They also will study prazosin's long-term impact, compared with that of the placebo, on total PTSD symptoms, comorbid depression, quality of life, and physical functioning.

Information on this study “Prazosin and Combat Trauma PTSD (PACT)” is posted at <http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00532493>.