Fifteen years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have generated unprecedented investment in mitigating war-related mental health problems, including large increases in funding since 2007 for clinical trials of trauma-focused psychotherapies.

This issue of JAMA Psychiatry includes one of the most important clinical trials to emerge from the Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs (DoD/VA) research portfolio, a large trial by Resick et al comparing individual and group cognitive processing therapy (CPT) in service members with post-deployment post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Group therapies of various types are frequently used in DoD/VA and other health care settings, despite limited evidence supporting their efficacy. Individual CPT and prolonged exposure therapy (PE) are the 2 evidence-based trauma-focused psychotherapies most widely used in DoD/VA facilities. However, in many locations, access to individual trauma-focused treatment is limited owing to lack of resources and/or trained personnel. Cognitive processing therapy lends itself well to group delivery through a highly manualized approach with worksheets and Socratic questioning focused on restructuring trauma-related cognitions. Effective group therapy for PTSD would open the door to more efficient care for larger numbers of patients, making this study a high priority.

Read more in JAMA Psychiatry.