Preventing PTSD

Reported June 6, 2008
Preventing PTSD
(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Reliving a troubling event may help patients prevent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In exposure therapy, individuals who recently survived a traumatic event are instructed to mentally relive the event. The goal is to ease anxiety associated with the memory and reverse the belief that it’s best to avoid that memory. Despite evidence that some clinicians avoid this kind of therapy because it distresses recent trauma survivors, exposure therapy has been used alongside cognitive restructuring to prevent PTSD. Cognitive restructuring involves changing counterproductive thoughts and responses brought on by a troubling event.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, compared the progress of patients in exposure therapy with those in cognitive restructuring. They also compared their progress with patients on a waitlist for treatment. They found fewer patients in the exposure therapy group met criteria for PTSD after completing the treatment than patients in the cognitive restructuring group or the waitlist group. In different results collected after six months, 14 patients in the exposure group achieved full remission, while four patients in the cognitive restructuring group did. In addition, researchers found distress ratings to be lower in the exposure therapy group than in the cognitive restructuring group.

“The current findings suggest that direct activation of trauma memories is particularly useful for prevention of PTSD symptoms in patients with acute stress disorder,” study authors write.

“Exposure should be used in early intervention for people who are at high risk for developing PTSD.”

Source: The Archives of General Psychiatry, 2008;65:659-667


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