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Brief Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

B

Boston VA Research Institute, Inc.

Status

Completed

Conditions

PTSD

Treatments

Behavioral: CPT, cognitive only
Behavioral: written exposure therapy

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other
Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT03033602
W81WH-15-1-0391

Details and patient eligibility

About

The primary goal of this study is to examine whether a brief treatment approach for PTSD is equally efficacious in the treatment of active duty service members relative to a first line treatment approach that requires much greater treatment dose.

Full description

The goal of this randomized clinical trial is to investigate if a brief, written intervention for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Written Exposure Therapy (WET), is non-inferior compared to an evidenced-based behavioral therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy-Cognition only (CPT-C), in the treatment of PTSD in active duty military men and women with a diagnosis of PTSD who have deployed in support of a post-9/11. The primary study outcome is change in symptom severity as assessed by the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-5 edition (CAPS-5). Independent assessors evaluated participants using the CAPS-5 at baseline, 10-, 20-, and 30-week after the first treatment session.

Enrollment

169 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18+ years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

  • Male and female active duty military personnel who have deployed in support of a post-9/11 conflict seeking treatment for PTSD
  • Diagnosis of PTSD
  • Ability to speak, read and write English
  • Not currently engaged in psychosocial treatment for PTSD
  • Individuals taking psychotropic medications agree to work with their prescriber to remain on stable doses of any prescribed psychotropic medications for the duration of the intervention and through the first follow-up assessment as much as possible and as medically indicated.

Exclusion criteria

  • Current suicide or homicide risk meriting crisis intervention
  • Active psychosis
  • Moderate to severe brain damage

Trial design

Primary purpose

Treatment

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

Single Blind

169 participants in 2 patient groups

Written exposure therapy
Experimental group
Description:
5 sessions of imaginal exposure therapy.
Treatment:
Behavioral: written exposure therapy
CPT, cognitive only
Active Comparator group
Description:
12 sessions of cognitive therapy.
Treatment:
Behavioral: CPT, cognitive only

Trial documents
1

Trial contacts and locations

2

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Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

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