Courtney B. Worley

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs | VA · Veterans Health Administration

Study Objectives Trauma-exposed veterans may be at an increased risk for nightmares. To date, however, no known study has examined the prevalence, risk factors, and comorbidities of nightmares in a nationally representative sample of veterans. Methods A nationally representative sample of 4,069 US military veterans completed a survey that assessed...

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has rolled out evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); however, reach has remained low, and there is a need for briefer interventions. The National Center for PTSD conducted a facilitated learning collaborative to train clinicians and support VHA PTSD teams in their ad...

Study objectives: The Disturbing Dream and Nightmare Severity Index (DDNSI) has been used widely in research and clinical practice without psychometric evidence supporting its use in clinical samples. The present study aimed to explore and confirm the factor structure of the DDNSI in an inpatient sample. We also sought to test the measure's constr...

Nightmares and disturbing dreams are often thought about as hallmark symptoms of trauma (APA, 2022), but also are common among both clinical and general populations. They are experiences that often evoke distress, fear, and terror. Physiologically, we feel arousal with shortness of breath, and a racing heart that often leads to a racing mind. The c...

Participant training alone is typically insufficient to ensure adoption of a new treatment. This study provides preliminary data on a pilot program that implemented written exposure therapy (WET) through a virtual facilitated learning collaborative (VFLC) that combined clinician training with implementation support. Ninety-five mental health clinic...

Objective: Written Exposure Therapy (WET) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been shown to be efficacious in clinical trials; however, research is needed to determine WET's effectiveness in clinical practice settings. Additionally, research is needed to understand whether patient characteristics or treatment delivery format moderate outc...

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a significant problem. Clinical practice guidelines recommend evidence-based treatments (EBTs) including cognitive processing therapy (CPT) and prolonged exposure (PE) as first-line treatments. Training in EBTs for PTSD has often been limited to large-scale systems (e.g., U.S. Department of Veter...

Study Objectives Disturbing dreams are a common complaint among trauma survivors, but little epidemiological research exists to document the frequency in the general population. In addition, information about their occurrence in diverse adults is lacking. Methods Using the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys we had the unique opportunit...

Background: Trauma related nightmares are a hallmark symptom of PTSD but the prevalence of nightmares in psychiatric conditions are not well established. Additionally, little is known about the occurrence of trauma related nightmares in diverse adults from different race/ethnicities living in the US. Methods: Using the Collaborative Psychiatric Epi...

Background: Nightmares are a common complaint among trauma survivors, but little epidemiological research exists to document the frequency in the general population. In addition, information about nightmare occurrence in diverse adults is lacking. Methods: Using the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys we had the unique opportunity to ex...

Background: Nightmares are a significant predictor of suicidality, over and above symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD; however, less is known about the rates of suicidality among individuals who have nightmares. Trauma-related nightmares have been shown to relate significantly to suicidality, though the relation between nightmare content and...

In response to COVID‐19, continued workforce training is essential to ensure that evidence‐based treatments are available on the frontline to meet communities’ ongoing and emerging mental health needs. However, training during a pandemic imposes many new challenges. This paper describes a multisite training and implementation pilot program, facets...

The Veterans Health Administration began a formal training program for evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) for Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 2007. Barriers continue to exist in the delivery of these EBPs for all Veterans diagnosed with PTSD resulting in lower than desired penetration rates. Written Exposure Therapy (WET) is an EBP for P...

Although empirically supported treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) produce reductions in symptoms, they have less impact on functional impairment (Schnurr et al., 2003). Accordingly, identifying intervention targets beyond PTSD that may alleviate functional impairment is critical to enhancing treatment outcomes. Preliminary findings...

The present study compared the characteristics of health status and health care access and use among older American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIANs) to those of non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs). Data were drawn from the 2009 California Health Interview Survey, with a total of 17,156 adults aged 60 and older (198 AIANs and 16,958 NHWs) analyzed. Older A...

Guidelines published by the American College of Gastroenterologists suggest that African Americans (AA) begin preventive screening at the age of 45 years due to increased risk of colorectal cancer. This study examines characteristics associated with having fecal occult blood tests (FOBT), sigmoidoscopy, and colonoscopy among adults aged 45-75 years...

To explore the implications of limited English proficiency (LEP) for disparities in health status and healthcare service use of older Latino and Asian immigrants. Cross-sectional analysis of existing secondary data. The 2007 California Health Interview Survey. Latino and Asian immigrants aged 60 and older (n=1,745) were divided into three language...

Background: Colorectal cancer is a leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality in the United States. It is estimated that approximately 142,570 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed and over 51,000 will die in 2010. Further, African Americans are diagnosed at later stages and suffer disproportionately higher mortality rates from colo...

Psychopathy is thought by many to be an untreatable disorder. This article puts the treatment of psychopathy into historical context and reviews research on the treatment of the disorder with adults (K = 8) and youth (K = 5). Findings indicate that treatment for adults shows low to moderate success with three of eight studies demonstrating treatmen...

Purpose – This paper seeks to describe the design, implementation, and lessons learned from an obesity prevention pilot program delivered in a low resource school in the USA. Design/methodology/approach – A planned program evaluation was conducted to: document explicitly the process of designing and implementing the program; and assess the feasibil...