The VA's New Mobile App: PTSD Coach

Taken from the VA's website, modified from original;
The PTSD Coach app, a free iTunes download, can help you learn about and manage symptoms that commonly occur after trauma. Features include:

• Reliable information on PTSD and treatments that work
• Tools for screening and tracking your symptoms
• Convenient, easy-to-use skills to help you handle stress symptoms
• Direct links to support and help
• Always with you when you need it

Together with professional medical treatment, PTSD Coach provides you dependable resources you can trust. If you have, or think you might have PTSD, this app is for you. Family and friends can also learn from this app. PTSD Coach was created by the VA's National Center for PTSD and the DoD's National Center for Telehealth and Technology.

NOTE: PTSD is a serious mental health condition that often requires professional evaluation and treatment. PTSD Coach is not intended to replace needed professional care. The questionnaire used in PTSD Coach, the PTSD Checklist (PCL), is a reliable and valid self-report measure used across VA, DoD, and in the community, but it is not intended to replace professional evaluation.

Providing you with facts and self-help skills based on research.

Privacy and Security

Any data created by the user of this app are only as secure as the phone/device itself. Use the security features on your device if you are concerned about the privacy of your information. Users are free to share data, but as the self-monitoring data belong to each user, HIPAA concerns do not apply while the data is stored or shared. If the user were to transmit or share data with a health care provider, the provider must then comply with HIPAA rules.

Watch for other additions:

• PTSD Coach for Android coming late Spring 2011
• PTSD Family Coach (coming soon)

Contact us for more information or with comments: ncptsd@va.gov