Abstract
BACKGROUND: Investigation of treatments that effectively treat adults with post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood experiences (Ch-PTSD) and are well tolerated by patients is needed to improve outcomes for this population.
AIMS: The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two trauma-focused treatments, imagery rescripting (ImRs) and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR), for treating Ch-PTSD.
METHOD: We conducted an international, multicentre, randomised clinical trial, recruiting adults with Ch-PTSD from childhood trauma before 16 years of age. Participants were randomised to treatment condition and assessed by blind raters at multiple time points. Participants received up to 12 90-min sessions of either ImRs or EMDR, biweekly.
RESULTS: A total of 155 participants were included in the final intent-to-treat analysis. Drop-out rates were low, at 7.7%. A generalised linear mixed model of repeated measures showed that observer-rated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms significantly decreased for both ImRs (d = 1.72) and EMDR (d = 1.73) at the 8-week post-treatment assessment. Similar results were seen with secondary outcome measures and self-reported PTSD symptoms. There were no significant differences between the two treatments on any standardised measure at post-treatment and follow-up.
CONCLUSIONS: ImRs and EMDR treatments were found to be effective in treating PTSD symptoms arising from childhood trauma, and in reducing other symptoms such as depression, dissociation and trauma-related cognitions. The low drop-out rates suggest that the treatments were well tolerated by participants. The results from this study provide evidence for the use of trauma-focused treatments for Ch-PTSD.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 0007125020001580 |
Pages (from-to) | 609-615 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | British Journal of Psychiatry |
Volume | 217 |
Issue number | 5 |
Early online date | 7 Sept 2020 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2020 |
Keywords
- COMPLEX PTSD
- EMDR
- MEMORIES
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- RELIABILITY
- SURVIVORS
- VALIDITY
- childhood trauma
- eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing
- imagery rescripting
- psychotherapy