Identification and Assessment of Factors Affecting Veterans' Therapeutic Engagement
3 - (SYM 75) Do Cohort Personality Characteristics Predict Treatment Outcomes in a Military Intensive Outpatient Program? A Registered Report
Sunday, November 23, 2025
2:48 PM - 3:09 PM CST
Location: Strand 12 A&B, Level 2
Keywords: Veterans, Treatment, PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) Recommended Readings: Johnson, E. M., & Possemato, K. (2019). Correlates and predictors of mental health care utilization for veterans with PTSD: A systematic review. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 11(8), 851-860. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000461, Sherrill, A. M., Wiese, C. W., Abdullah, S., & Arriaga, R. I. (2025). Teaming with Artificial Intelligence to learn and sustain psychotherapy delivery skills: Workplace, ethical, and research Implications. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-025-00484-4, Parry, K. J., Hicken, B. L., Chen, W., Leng, J., Allen, S., & Burningham, Z. (2023). Impact of moral injury and posttraumatic stress disorder on health care utilization and suicidality in rural and urban veterans. Journal of traumatic stress, 36(1), 117-128. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22889, McGuire, A. P., Rodenbaugh, M., Howard, B. A. N., & Contractor, A. A. (2024). Response styles to positive affect during a positive psychology intervention for veterans with PTSD and moral injury: Preliminary results from a moral elevation intervention pilot trial. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001774, Rauch, S. A. M., Yasinski, C. W., Post, L. M., Jovanovic, T., Norrholm, S., Sherrill, A. M., Michopoulos, V., Maples-Keller, J. L., Black, K., Zwiebach, L., Dunlop, B. W., Loucks, L., Lannert, B., Stojek, M., Watkins, L., Burton, M., Sprang, K., McSweeney, L., Ragsdale, K., & Rothbaum, B. O. (2021). An intensive outpatient program with prolonged exposure for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder: Retention, predictors, and patterns of change. Psychological Services, 18(4), 606–618. https://doi.org/10.1037/ser0000422
Abstract Body Intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) provide effective, accelerated therapeutic care for military populations and reduce attrition compared to traditional weekly interventions. A defining feature of IOPs is their cohort-based format, in which patients enter treatment together, engage in daily group sessions, stay in the same hotel, and form informal peer support networks. While the dispositional characteristics of treatment groups (e.g., supportiveness) have long been theorized as critical to patient outcomes, its impact within IOPs remains unexplored. The proposed study will leverage longitudinal data from the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program (Patient N ≈ 650; Cohort N ≈ 250-300), a two-week IOP that delivers daily individual and group-based cognitive behavioral therapy for fear- and distress-related disorders. We propose to examine how treatment cohort personality composition predicts 12-month symptom trajectories, treatment satisfaction, and functional improvement following engagement in a military-focused IOP using Bayesian multilevel modeling across two missing data approaches.
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