Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Pain Comorbidity in Veterans
Abstract
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is prevalent and under-recognized in Veteran's Administration (VA) primary care and commonly co-occurs with chronic pain. Our primary aim was to analyze existing clinical and administrative data in Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 11 to determine whether the presence of pain affects the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD among VA patients who have a positive PTSD screening test. We identified 4,244 patients who had a positive PTSD screen between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2007. The mean patient age was 50.4 and 91.9% were male. Half of the cohort had a concurrent pain diagnosis (n=2,104). Those with pain were slightly younger (48.8 vs. 52.0 years, p<0.001), more likely to have depression (33.4% vs. 29.4%, p=0.005), and less likely to have medical comorbidity (p<0.001) than those without coexisting pain. In the year following their positive PTSD screen, 56.4% of patients received a mental health visit and 27.7% received a diagnosis of PTSD. After controlling for baseline characteristics, patients with coexisting pain were less likely to have a follow-up mental health visit (HR 0.889, 95% CI 0.821, 0.962) than those without pain. The groups did not differ in the rate of PTSD diagnosis (HR 0.968, 95% CI 0.866, 1.082).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA553762
Entities
People
- Erin E. Krebs
Organizations
- Indiana University