Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Conditions
Keywords
PTSD, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Physical Assault, Physical Abuse, Sexual Assault, Sexual Abuse, Interpersonal Assault, Cognitive Processing Therapy
Brief summary
This proposal seeks to increase the effectiveness of an existing treatment strategy, cognitive processing therapy (CPT), for the remediation of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among crime victims by varying the duration and content of the intervention in accordance with participants' needs. A secondary goal is to identify predictors of duration of treatment necessary to achieve good end state functioning, including individual and trauma variables, cognitive and emotional variables, and Axis II pathology. Finally, by including a sample of male participants, the generalizability of CPT will be tested. It is anticipated that these modifications will speed the dissemination of CPT to community practice thus benefiting more trauma victims. Fifty subjects will be randomly assigned to either the modified CPT condition or to a symptom-monitoring, minimal attention condition designed to control for the effects of the daily monitoring and the passage of time. Utilizing a semicrossover design, the control condition will be crossed over to the active treatment, allowing for a replication within the study. The entire treated sample (N = 50) will be compared to a sample (N = 50) receiving strict 12-session protocol-driven CPT through the course of a recent study conducted at the same site using the same primary outcome measures. Conducting the proposed study will have important implications on advancing the ecological validity and effectiveness of applied research on PTSD.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALCognitive Processing Therapy
Clients will receive between 4 and 20 sessions of Cognitive Processing Therapy.
Sponsors
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Center for Trauma Recovery, St Louis
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
CROSSOVER
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Participants will be survivors of interpersonal assault, who are at least three months post-crime at the time of their participation and who meet criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD. There is no upper time limit on time since crime for participation.
Exclusion criteria
*
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Good end-state functioning: Beck Depression Inventory-II and Posttraumatic Distress Scale Scores | 2 weeks post-treatment |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed