Citation

Arenson MB, McCaslin SE, Cohen BE. Depress. Anxiety 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/da.22945

PMID

31356711

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have lower overall functioning than healthy controls. However, this population is not homogenous, and those with PTSD have a wide range of functional outcomes. To our knowledge, only one other study has evaluated the predictors of better functioning within patients with PTSD.

METHODS: We examined 254 veterans with likely PTSD, using the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale to assess PTSD symptom severity, and the SF-36 and single-item question to assess aspects of current functioning and quality of life.

RESULTS: In fully adjusted models (controlling for age, gender, and PTSD score, and including all significant psychosocial predictors of the outcome of interest), greater sleep quality (p = .03), lower C-reactive protein (p < .01), and lower erythrocyte sedimentation rate (p = 0.04) were associated with greater physical functioning; lower depression (p < .01) and greater perceived social support (p = .05) were associated with greater social functioning; lower depression (p = .02) was associated with greater occupational functioning; and greater combat exposure (p = .04), greater optimism (p < .01) and greater perceived social support (p = .05) were associated with greater quality of life.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the differential impact of psychosocial predictors on multiple functional outcomes. As such, they provide important information for clinicians about aspects of veterans' lives that can be targeted during the treatment to improve specific types of functioning.

Published 2019. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Language: en

Keywords

PTSD; biological markers; depression; quality of life; resilience