Performance in Practice: Clinical Tools to Improve the Care of Patients with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

To facilitate continued clinical competence, the American Board of Medical Specialties and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology are implementing multifaceted Maintenance of Certification programs, which include requirements for self-assessments of practice. Because psychiatrists may want to gain experience with self-assessment, two sample performance-in-practice tools are presented that are based on recommendations of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Patients with Acute Stress Disorder and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and the US Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense (VA/DoD) Clinical Practice Guideline for the Management of Post-Traumatic Stress. One of these sample tools provides a traditional chart review approach to assessing care (Appendix A); the other sample tool presents an approach that permits a real-time evaluation of practice (Appendix B). Both tools focus on treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among adults age 18 or older, and both can be used as a foundation for subsequent performance improvement initiatives with the aim of enhancing outcomes for patients with PTSD.