A spirituality based group intervention for combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder: Feasibility study

Purpose: To assess the feasibility, effect sizes, and satisfaction of mantram repetition—the spiritual practice of repeat-ing a sacred word/phrase throughout the day—for managing symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in vet-erans. Design: A two group (intervention vs. control) by two time (pre- and postintervention) experimental design was used. Methods: Veterans were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 14) or delayed-treatment control (n = 15). Measures were PTSD symptoms, psychological distress, quality of life, and patient satisfaction. Effect sizes were calcu-lated using Cohen’s d. Findings: Thirty-three male veterans were enrolled, and 29 (88%) completed the study. Large effect sizes were found for reducing PTSD symptom severity (d = –.72), psychological distress (d = –.73) and increas-ing quality of life (d =.70). Conclusions: A spiritual program was found to be feasible for veterans with PTSD. They reported moderate to high satisfaction. Effect sizes show promise for symptom improvement but more research is needed