Jessica Walton

• Ph.D.
• Medical Professional at Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System

The PTSD Checklist for DSM‐5 (PCL‐5) is the most widely used self‐report measure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is frequently modeled as having four correlated factors consistent with the DSM‐5 symptom structure. Some researchers have argued that item order may influence factor structure. Although two studies have examined this, they w...

Written exposure therapy (WET) is a brief, manualized trauma‐focused treatment typically delivered in five individual weekly sessions. Given the brevity and effectiveness of WET, researchers have begun to focus on its delivery in a massed format. However, only one case study examining massed delivery has been published to date. As such, the objecti...

Prior research has linked chronic pain with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, but findings regarding the association between pain and substance use disorder (SUD) severity have been mixed. One explanation for the discrepant findings may be based on the ways in which SUD outcomes are measured. That is, it may be that pain has a differen...

Access to mental health services, particularly for veterans residing in underserved communities, remain scarce. One approach to addressing availability barriers is through the use of group-based transdiagnostic or unified treatment protocols. One such protocol, Safety Aid Reduction Treatment (START), previously termed False Safety Behavior Eliminat...

Background Despite high rates of comorbidity between pain and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), little is known about factors that may account for this association. Previous research demonstrates that anxiety sensitivity (AS), the tendency to fear bodily sensations associated with anxious arousal, is elevated among patients with these condition...

The co-occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders (SUD) is highly prevalent among military veterans and represents a difficult-to-treat comorbidity. Distress intolerance (DI; i.e., the perceived inability to tolerate negative emotional states) and anxiety sensitivity (AS, i.e., the fear of anxiety-related sensati...

Background: The purpose of the current study was to compare levels of anxiety sensitivity (AS) across a treatment-seeking sample of individuals primarily using opioids, stimulants, or cannabis. Consistent with the idea that individuals high in AS may be motivated to use substances with real or perceived anxiolytic properties, it was hypothesized t...

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU), defined as an inability to tolerate the unpleasant response triggered by the observed absence of information, has received increased empirical attention in recent years. The contribution of this cognitive behavioral construct to the etiology and maintenance of various anxiety disorders has become increasingly recogn...

Although the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often criticized for including symptoms that overlap with one another, only one study has explored the impact of symptom reporting. Using a clinician-rated interview for PTSD (N = 558), the current study examined overlap between PTSD criteria D1, D2, and D3 ("target D symptoms") and...

Background: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013) includes Other- and Unspecified- Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders to capture subthreshold Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms. However, the DSM-5 does not specify the number or type of symptoms n...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been criticized for including symptoms that substantially overlap with other depression and anxiety disorders. To address this concern, Brewin and colleagues (2009) reformulated the diagnosis around a core symptom set. Although several studies have examined the utility of the core criteria in predicting diag...

Background and objectives: Prior research has revealed a strong relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and alcohol misuse. However, previous attempts to understand nuanced associations between PTSD symptom clusters and alcohol misuse within military veteran samples have produced mixed results. In an attempt to better understand...

Introduction It is estimated that 70% of patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have chronic insomnia. A recent meta-analysis examined cognitive-behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) in veterans with and without PTSD, and suggested that most studies had questionable methodology, but generally supported its effectiveness in this popul...

Background Although the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide has been firmly established, research on underlying mechanisms has been disproportionately low. The cognitive concerns subscale of anxiety sensitivity (AS), which reflects fears of cognitive dyscontrol, has been linked to both PTSD and suicide and thus may...

Historically, the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have garnered attention and controversy due to symptom overlap with other disorders. To improve diagnostic specificity, researchers have proposed to reformulate PTSD symptoms into a parsimonious set of core criteria. The core symptoms consisted of recurrent distressing dreams or fla...

Objective: Research indicates that trauma can precipitate a loss of faith and struggles in the spiritual domain, leading to increased suicide risk. However, little is known about the specific types of spiritual struggles that may confer risk. This brief report examines the utility of a newly developed measure, the Religious and Spiritual Struggles...

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition-5 (DSM-5) has adopted a four-factor symptom model for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that includes new symptom additions in criterion D (D2, D3, D4), negative alterations in cognition and mood. This article examines potential overlapping endorsement of these symptoms amongst one another and...

Anxiety sensitivity (AS), a well-established individual difference variable reflecting a tendency to fear bodily sensations associated with arousal, has been implicated in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite these associations, little research has examined the relations between AS subfactors (eg physical...

This pilot study examined use of smart-phone technology to deliver prolonged exposure (PE) therapy to patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with geographic limitations hindering in-person therapy. The primary goal was to examine the feasibility and acceptability of using video-teleconferencing (i.e., computer-based and iPhone4 streamin...

In Our Own Voice (IOOV) is a 90-min anti-stigma program that comprises face-to-face stories of challenges of mental illness and hopes and dreams commensurate with recovery. We pared down IOOV to a 30-min version, using information from two focus groups. In this study, effects of 90- versus 30-min IOOV are contrasted with 30 min of education. Two hu...

Goffman (Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NH, 1963) distinguished stigmatized groups as discredited (with relatively obvious marks such as people of color or gender) or discreditable (without obvious marks, causing stigma to be largely hidden). Like gay men and lesbians, people with various...