View clinical trials related to Moral Injury.
Filter by:The purpose of this research is to validate the moral injury symptom scale clinician version short form and the Moral Injury Outcome Scale in nurses. Participants will be recruited in accordance with AdventHealth Policy # 400.120: Selection and Enrollment of AdventHealth Employees, Physicians, and Volunteers for research Studies. Employee participants will be assured participation in this study will not affect performance evaluation or employment-related decisions by peers or supervisors. No employees will be recruited by a direct supervisor. Recruitment of potential employees as participants will occur without coercion by the Principal Investigator (PI), by bulletin board advertisements, or through a third party unassociated in a power/supervisory relationship with the employee (i.e., researchers from Center for Whole-Person Research).
Given the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and moral injury in combat Veterans and the limitations to current treatments, novel approaches are needed to target both PTSD and moral injury and directly impact psychosocial growth and functional recovery. One potential way to address this critical need is through moral elevation-a positive emotional state described as feeling uplifted and inspired by others' virtuous actions. This study will pilot a web-based moral elevation intervention with Operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and New Dawn Veterans who experienced a morally injurious event and with a PTSD diagnosis. If Veterans are willing and able to complete an online moral elevation intervention and it has beneficial effects, then moral elevation could be feasibly utilized as a tool to reverse the negative effects of trauma and facilitate recovery. Data from this study will be used to develop larger clinical trials to test if this intervention significantly improves PTSD symptoms and moral injury distress and enhances social functioning.
The objective of this project is to test the efficacy of an individual treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) stemming from moral injury called Impact of Killing (IOK), compared to a present-centered therapy (PCT) control condition, and to determine the rehabilitative utility of IOK for Veterans with PTSD. The first aim is to test whether IOK can help improve psychosocial functioning for Veterans, as well as PTSD symptoms. The second aim is to determine whether IOK gains made by Veterans in treatment are durable, as measured by a six-month follow-up assessment. Veterans who kill in war are at increased risk for functional difficulties, PTSD, alcohol abuse, and suicide. Even after current PTSD psychotherapies, most Veterans continue to meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD, highlighting the need for expanding treatments for PTSD and functioning. IOK is a treatment that can be provided following existing PTSD treatments, filling a critical gap for Veterans with moral injury who continue to suffer from mental health symptoms and functional difficulties.
The need for moral injury interventions is increasingly being recognized as a domain in Veteran care that must be addressed. Consequences of exposure to morally injurious events include risk for suicide, substance abuse, and refractory symptoms of PTSD and depression. Exposure to morally injurious events is also highly prevalent among Veterans. Thus, interventions addressing moral injury are crucial to helping Veterans build meaningful lives. Psychotherapies explicitly targeting moral injury and functional recovery associated with this construct are limited in VHA. The proposed study serves as a first step in addressing this gap in the literature through the development of a recovery-oriented, evidence-based treatment approach for moral injury among warzone Veterans who report functional impairments related to moral emotions. The proposed pilot study will evaluate the acceptability of this intervention and the feasibility of the design for a future study to test the treatment's capacity to improve patients' functioning.
Veterans with co-occurring Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Substance Use Disorder (PTSD-SUD) experience more severe symptomatology and poorer response to existing treatments than Veterans with either disorder alone. Guilt is a common posttraumatic reaction and has been implicated as a risk factor for the development and maintenance of PTSD and substance use. Combat Veterans often report experiencing moral injury defined as perpetrating, failing to prevent, or witnessing acts that violate the values they live by in their civilian lives, which can lead to feelings of guilt and shame. Accordingly, reduction in guilt and increase in self-compassion may lead to improved quality of life for Veterans. This project will conduct a pilot study to evaluate changes in self-compassion, guilt, and PTSD-SUD symptom severity in a sample of Veterans after receiving 8 sessions of Mindful Self Compassion treatment (via a telehealth modality during COVID-19 pandemic). Findings will have significant impact on effective treatment options and lead to improvements in Veterans' quality of life and posttraumatic symptoms.
The aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of Adaptive Disclosure for Moral Injury and Loss (AD-MIL), a combat-specific psychotherapy for war-related PTSD stemming from Moral Injury (MI) and traumatic loss (TL) with Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans with PTSD. AD-MIL will be compared to Present Centered Therapy (PCT). AD-MIL is a modified version of Adaptive Disclosure (AD), which has been modified and extended to solely treat MI and TL by targeting psychological and behavioral obstacles to occupational, relationship, and family functioning, as well as quality of life. PCT is a manualized evidenced-based PTSD treatment used in several large-scale PTSD trials. The primary end-point is psychosocial functioning (improvements in social, educational and occupational functions and improvements in quality of life). Secondary end-points include PTSD, depression, and shame and guilt. The investigators will also explore the impact of AD-MIL on anger and aggressive behaviors, suicidal ideation, and alcohol abuse.