None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
In the course of military training, personnel are trained to attend to cues in their environment that may signal threat, and in deployment situations this training can be life-saving. Upon return to civilian life however, constantly feeling alert and attending to cues that seem threatening can become a problem and in some cases this has been shown to be associated with the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a common and often severe problem for many who serve in the military. In particular, it can involve constantly being on the lookout for danger, which may be compounded by training received during military training to be vigilant. Attention control training (ACT) is an intervention designed to modify the fluctuations in attention to threat that underpins PTSD. ACT is brief, computerised program that is delivered once weekly for four weeks. The trial will involve 1806 current serving personnel between 18 to 70 years of age who are transitioning out of the military within the next 12 weeks. Participation involves a number of short self-report assessments and attending weekly ACT or control training sessions over four consecutive weeks. All self-report assessments will be completed online using a mobile phone, and will be done four times in total: immediately before the intervention, immediately post-intervention (4 weeks), and at 3 and 12-months follow-up. The results of this trial will inform the broader military community both in Australia and overseas by improving our understanding of effective preventions for the development of mental health symptoms after military service.
Interventions
Attention control training (ACT)
In ACT, participants perform four computer-delivered attention training sessions, 7 minutes per training session, over four weeks. Participants are required to attend in-person to the designated local office for the SOAR trial to complete the task on a laptop computer. The expectation is that participants complete one session a week for four weeks, although some flexibility will be allowed based on other time commitments associated with transitioning from the mi
Attention control training (ACT) In ACT, participants perform four computer-delivered attention training sessions, 7 minutes per training session, over four weeks. Participants are required to attend in-person to the designated local office for the SOAR trial to complete the task on a laptop computer. The expectation is that participants complete one session a week for four weeks, although some flexibility will be allowed based on other time commitments associated with transitioning from the military. In each session the dot-probe task is administered. The task consists of 160 trials. Each trial begins with a centrally-presented fixation cross that is then replaced by a pair of neutral and threat words. A target probe appears in the location previously occupied by one of the words, and participants are requested to discriminate the probe type via button press. Targets appear with equal probability at the location of threat and neutral stimuli, in order to modify the fluctuations in attention allocation. Adherence to the intervention and instructions provided will be monitored using response time and accuracy rates; cases with extreme outliers will be excluded from analysis.
Sponsors
University of Melbourne
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Subject, Caregiver, Investigator)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
1. Must be 18 years of age or older 2. Must be a current serving member of the full-time ADF 3. Must be separating from the full-time ADF in the next 12 weeks 4. Must be able to commit to and complete the intervention before separation from ADF
Exclusion criteria
1. Report current self-identified treatment for bipolar or a psychotic disorder (due to the potential influences of medication and psychological symptoms on cognition) 2. Currently receiving medical treatment that may significantly impair their reaction times 3. Unable to use a computer keyboard
Outcome results
None listed