HOPE AND HEALING AFTER TRAUMA

David Daugherty, Area Manager, PTSD Foundation of America

CAN DATA HELP US SEE WHAT WE ‘KNOW’?

More than 1,500 veterans since 2012 have come through Camp Hope’s intensive residential program, which provides comprehensive peer support and a safe space for victims of trauma and post-traumatic stress to heal.

The peer-to-peer component is more challenging to quantify than other types of treatment, and the foundation is hoping that its efforts to change how it approaches data will help shine a light on it.

“There really isn’t very much research at all about its efficacy, but at a human level, people just know,” says David Daugherty, an area manager for the foundation who initiated the project. “If you have a problem, the first person you call is someone you trust.”

Not surprisingly, that instinct rings true for anyone who has suffered from trauma, which is why even those treating civilians for PTSD and other mental health issues are interested in validating peer-counseling’s value.

“I don’t know anyone who has gone through a trauma who wants to talk to a lab coat,” Broughton says. “You want someone who understands it. It’s really nice when someone who is struggling or suffering can walk into a place and see themselves. Because they’re not going to feel stigma or judgment. They’re more apt to embrace help and seek help. There’s a lot of value in that.”

SIX QUESTIONS, LIMITLESS ANSWERS

Using data to validate the peer-to-peer aspect of Camp Hope’s whole-person care approach is actually the second phase of the project.

Step one was to figure out how to assess veterans’ suicidality more comprehensively than has traditionally been done. Typical assessments make it hard to account for change over time because they result in a very limited scale of risk – think low, medium or high. That, or they would require such a vast number of questions that it might discourage people from completing it accurately.

So the PTSD Foundation worked with SAS to develop a new method that keeps the assessment questionnaire short and simple enough to be approachable for trauma victims, yet provides far more detailed insights about a person’s risk of suicide once the data is analyzed.

By looking at the correlations in the data between all the various mental health challenges – depression, anger, substance abuse and more – that are often associated with PTSD, the foundation gets a clearer picture of an individual veteran’s suicide risk.

The reimagined approach lets them accomplish with six questions covering 16 domains what might otherwise require asking 450 questions and makes it possible to measure progress – or regression – as veterans go through the different phases of the program.

Being able to dive into the data in this way with the help of volunteers from SAS who are also military veterans, the foundation can better ensure that no one graduates the program prematurely and everyone gets the help they need.

                                       
This decision tree shows how the interactions between multiple mental health challenges can provide a clearer perspective of a person’s overall well-being.

Plus, it’s these insights that could lead to the foundation’s success stories going beyond the anecdotal and having a wider application.

“The majority of clinical interventions want EVPs – evidence-based practices,” Rogers says. “In order for any organization to grab something that works, it’s not enough to say, ‘Hey, look at these 10 individuals. They’re alive because of what we’re doing.’ Where is the data that supports the fact that these 10 individuals are alive and functioning well because of the interventions?”

The PTSD Foundation is confident that once its data-driven approach goes beyond Camp Hope, anyone struggling to deal with trauma – from other military veterans to the average person suffering in silence – will get the same type of life-changing care.