In Combat Amputees with TBI, Early Morphine Administration Reduces Psychiatric Sequelae

Intravenous morphine, with or without fentanyl, but not fentanyl alone, lowers the risk for PTSD and depression.

Rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after traumatic injury vary widely. Administering morphine soon after combat injury reportedly reduces PTSD rates by about 50%. Using several military databases, investigators retrospectively examined PTSD and other psychiatric disorders among 258 Iraq combat veterans who required limb amputation (typically lower limbs injured in blasts); 115 (45%) incurred a traumatic brain injury (TBI; rated as severe to moderate in 20).

The sample included 145 patients with medication records from resuscitation and hemorrhage control efforts before the patients were transferred to field hospitals for surgery. Among those with TBI who received intravenous morphine (either with or without fentanyl) in this earl…

Reviewing Author

Joel Yager, MD

Disclosures

Editorial BoardsInternational Journal of Eating Disorders; UpToDate; FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry; American Journal of Psychotherapy

Joel Yager, MD

Disclosures

Editorial BoardsInternational Journal of Eating Disorders; UpToDate; FOCUS: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry; American Journal of Psychotherapy

In Combat Amputees with TBI, Early Morphine Administration Reduces Psychiatric Sequelae

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Reviewing Author