Psychosocial interventions for military personnel with PTSD: protocol of a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Introduction Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a serious mental health condition. It may develop following exposure to an extremely threatening event. Military personnel face an increased likelihood of developing PTSD because they sometimes bring experiences of difficult events from before they joined the military and because they have higher odds of being exposed to potentially traumatic events during service. To support the mental health of military personnel, several psychological interventions have been developed to help them manage PTSD symptoms. Although there is a lot of research demonstrating how well these interventions work, we do not know how the different interventions (eg, trauma-informed therapy, cognitive-behavioural therapy) compare. Because many of these interventions include more than one type of treatment (eg, behavioural activation), we do not know which specific component works best. Methods and analysis To explore these questions, we will identify previous studies that have examined interventions for PTSD in military personnel. We will then use network meta-analysis methods to make comparisons between all interventions, including some that have never been compared against each other in previous studies, to identify the best treatments. We also aim to identify which individual components are effective, even when delivered in combination. We will work with people with lived experiences, researchers, and mental health professionals to guide the project stages. Overall, this project aims to improve outcomes for military and ex-military personnel with PTSD by (1) identifying effective treatments, (2) establishing the relevance and transferability of the findings to a wider audience and (3) offering suggestions that will have immediate implications for clinical practice. Ethics and dissemination No ethics approval is required as this study only involves a systematic review of published literature. The findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at relevant conferences. PROSPERO registration number CRD420251081519.