VA/DoD clinical practice guideline for management of posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder

Guideline for the management of PTSD published by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense.  Recommendations include EMDR therapy as treatment in various contexts throughout the guidance.

Treatment Guideline Overview

“Clinical practice guidelines are used in health care to improve patient care as a potential solution to reduce inappropriate variations in care. Guidelines should be evidence based, incorporate patient input, as well as explicit criteria to ensure internal validity. The use of guidelines must always be in the context of a health care provider’s clinical judgment in the care of a particular patient. For this reason, the guidelines may be viewed as an educational tool to provide information in shared decision making.

The guideline describes the critical decision points in the Management of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder and provides clear and comprehensive evidence based recommendations incorporating current information and practices for practitioners throughout the DoD and VA Health Care systems. The guideline is intended to improve patient outcomes and local management of patients with one of these diagnoses.”

—Description from source

Treatment Guideline Access

Open Access Guidelines

Management of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder Work Group.  (2023). VA/DoD clinical practice guideline for management of posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder. Department of Veterans Affairs & Department of Defense. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Open access retrieval: https://www.healthquality.va.gov/guidelines/MH/ptsd/

Open Access Synopsis Article

Schnurr, P. P., Hamblen, J. L., Wolf, J., Coller, R., Collie, C., Fuller, M. A., Holtzheimer, P. E., Kelly, U., Lang, A. J., McGraw, K., Morganstein, J. C., Norman, S. B., Papke, K., Petrakis, I., Riggs, D., Sall, J. A., Shiner, B., Wiechers, I., & Kelber, M. S. (2024). The management of posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder: Synopsis of the 2023 U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U. S. Department of Defense clinical practice guideline. Annals of Internal Medicine, Open access: https://doi.org/10.7326/M23-2757

About the Source

“VHA, in collaborations with the Department of Defense (DoD) and other leading professional organizations, has been developing clinical practice guidelines since the early 1990s. In 2010 the Institute of Medicine identified VA/DoD as leaders in clinical practice guideline development.

Implementation of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines is one strategy VHA has embraced to improve care by reducing variation in practice and systematizing “best practices”. Guidelines address patient cohorts, serve to reduce errors, and provide consistent quality of care and utilization of resources throughout and between the VA and DoD health care systems. Guidelines are also cornerstones for accountability and facilitate learning and the conduct of research. The guidelines on this site are those endorsed by the VA/DoD Evidence Based Practice Work Group. https://www.healthquality.va.gov/index.asp”

—Description from source