Patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) are at increased risk of depression following hospital discharge. Unfortunately, most depressed CVD patients do not receive appropriate care for their depression, often because they are unable to, or are fearful of traveling to providers for the regimen of 8-12 weekly visits of therapy such as Behavioral Activation (BA). This study will compare the effectiveness of BA for depression, delivered via Telehealth, to standard post-CVD hospital discharge best practices. It is predicted that patients who receive BA will have better mental health outcomes and will be less likely to be re-hospitalized compared to patients who receive standard post-discharge care.

PTSD is a prevalent condition for which veterans frequently seek treatment in the VA healthcare system. There are a number of first-line PTSD treatment approaches available, such as Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy. However, the efficacy rates of these treatments is not as high as what has been observed with civilian populations and approximately 36% of individuals drop out of these treatments prematurely. A proposed alternative to these treatments is Written Exposure Therapy (WET), a brief, 5 session intervention that has been shown to reduce symptoms of PTSD and contribute to lower dropout rates. The goal of this study is to investigate whether WET is as effective compared to Prolonged Exposure (PE) in the treatment of PTSD in a sample of veterans diagnosed with PTSD. It will involve approximately 150 Veterans. This research is funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.