It Is Time to Flip the Script and Leverage the Point of Care to Discover Ways of Improving Treatment Outcomes for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Commentary on “A Sobering Look at Treatment Effectiveness of Military-Related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” (Levi et al., 2021)

Abstract

Levi et al. (2021) reported posttreatment outcomes of 709 Israeli veterans seeking treatment for service-related distress and concluded that their results reveal the “limited overall effectiveness” of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this commentary, I critically appraise the categorical/diagnostic, model-based methods Levi et al. employed to examine effectiveness and use their observational study as a point of departure to describe an approach that uses benchmarked, repeated assessments of individual and aggregated outcomes (measurement-based care) to leverage these types of observational results to improve outcomes at the point of care as a way of advancing knowledge about how to best treat PTSD.