Professor David Forbes has dedicated his career to helping people heal from trauma and, with Associate Professor Lisa Dell in his team from the University of Melbourne and their project collaborators, they are paving the way to improve the lives of Australians with PTSD.
In a world-first partnership project, researchers have demonstrated exceptional clinical results for a shorter, more accessible gold standard treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Researchers from Phoenix Australia at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne collaborated with the Departments of Defence and Veterans’ Affairs to conduct a national randomised control trial in mental health treatment services. The trial showed significantly better completion rates (with non-completion down to 5% from 30%), faster recovery and outcomes equivalent to the best evidenced, lengthier PTSD treatment. These outcomes pave a way to improve the lives and wellbeing of people with PTSD across Australia.
For Professor David Forbes, helping people heal from impacts of trauma has been a career-long pursuit.
“For most of my life I’ve been aware of the impacts of trauma in society. Combining this with my personal family history during WWII influenced my direction into clinical psychology and PTSD,” said Professor Forbes.
“I’ve observed what it means to be burdened with chronic PTSD, its impact on the person’s life and the lives of their loved ones. It has been an honour to be at the cutting edge of research that has the potential to be such a game changer,” he said.
PTSD is the second most common mental disorder in Australia with over 1.5 million Australians experiencing it in the past 12 months. [1] For military and veteran personnel, the rates are higher. PTSD is associated with significant distress, elevated risks of suicidality, long-term disability, impaired relationships, lost productivity and high healthcare costs.
For Associate Professor Lisa Dell, also with Phoenix Australia seeing people chronically impacted for decades inspired her research.
“As researchers we have a responsibility to keep investigating innovative ways to deliver evidence-based care to support people in their recovery from PTSD. We need to keep finding options and opportunities, even for those who are chronically unwell,” said Associate Professor Dell.
Both researchers are clear about their motivations: To package ‘gold standard care’ in a more accessible way to maximise uptake and achieve outcomes for people with PTSD, their families and society.
“It’s been extremely important for us to deliver best practice treatments into real world clinical contexts, transforming service delivery and enhancing recovery. This protocol for best care for individuals with PTSD in a shorter timeframe has now been tested in a large national randomised control trial, in real life military and veteran treatment services. So, we know it works,” said Professor Forbes.
The low dropout rates, very strong individual results and over 60 trained clinicians, that can hit the ground running delivering the treatment, are key achievements from this research partnership.
Next steps
“We will now explore the potential to apply and evaluate this treatment for people with PTSD following exposures to other trauma types, such as physical injury, traumatic childbirth or violence. We are keen to work with other government agencies and community services to give more choice to the populations they support,” said Professor Forbes.
Professor Forbes, Associate Professor Dell and Dr Alyssa Sbisa will explore biopsychosocial predictors of who benefits most from different forms of treatment. This will help guide patient clinician collaborative decision making in selecting the most suitable intervention.
They plan to continue collaborating with other partners in this research, including Flinders University, University of NSW, Monash University and the University of Virginia (USA).
Chief Investigator: Professor David Forbes and Associate Professor Lisa Dell
Administering institution: University of Melbourne
Team list: Dr Alyssa Sbisa, Professor Meaghan O'Donnell, Professor Peter Tuerk, Professor Andrew Forbes, Professor Malcolm Battersby, Professor Richard Bryant
Grant information: Partnership Grant (2015–2021), $749,156.02 (with co-contribution of $523,264 from partners Depts of Veterans Affairs and Defence).
[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics (2020-2022), National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, ABS (2023)