Establishing a New Military Sexual Trauma Treatment Program: Issues and Recommendations for Design and Implementation

Abstract: This article presents a review of issues and considerations when developing a comprehensive military sexual trauma (MST) treatment program. A review of the current literature was conducted, which we argue is the first step in informing programmatic design. Next, information on how to obtain local public data and then a description of how we used this information to design the new MST program at our facility are discussed. Our clinic design reflects best practice while simultaneously incorporating real-world information and will be more likely to positively influence overall care to patients. As such, we recommend that clinicians involved in clinic development will use this process as a model for successful clinic planning and program development.