Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for PTSD

Trauma-Focused Behavioural Cognitive Therapy for PSTD
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Trauma-Focused Behavioural Cognitive Therapy for PSTD
Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioural Therapy treatment is usually intended to be a slightly short-term treatment, characteristically lasting twelve to sixteen sessions. According to Dalgleish et al. (2014), more than 8 in 10 traumatized children who get this form of treatment experience great improvement following 12 to 16 weeks of treatment. Depending on the needs of the individual child and family, treatment might be offered for longer episodes (Jensen et al., 2014). It is worth mentioning that Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy could be utilized as part of a larger treatment plan for kids who have complex difficulties. For young people who have PSTD, TF-CBT is usually recommended (Dalgleish, 2010). This research seeks to determine the efficacy of TF-CBT in treating youngsters who have PSTD.
Research question and hypothesis
The research question to be answered is:
How effective is Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in the treatment of young people with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD)?
The hypothesis that was tested is as follows:
The symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder would reduce appreciably with a twelve-session Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy intervention relative to those participants who receive Treatment as Usual.
Method
1.0 Participants
In this study, a total of 46 trauma-exposed children aged 4-9 are included and they would be randomized to either the Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy treatment group (n=23) or the Treatment as Usual group (n=23). These participants are selected randomly. The inclusion criteria are as follows: (i) individual has experienced a serious traumatic event in the past. The qualified participants would have experienced a distinct stressor such as a medical procedure or emergency, experienced violence or witnessed it, or experienced a serious accident. Children who had both chronic PSTD that lasted for over 6 months, and acute PSTD that lasted between 1-6 months would also be included in the study since researchers have demonstrated that Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy actually benefits children who have acute and chronic PSTD alike (Cohen, Mannarino & Iyengar, 2011). (ii) They were aged between 4 years old and 9 years old at the time when they experienced the severe traumatic event as well as at the time of enrolment; (iii) the individual has no less than 4 symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder with one or several of them being a re-experiencing symptom.
The exclusion criteria are as follows: (i) deafness, learning disability, blindness, inability to speak the English language, having an autistic disorder, and being mentally retarded; (ii) having head trauma with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of at most 7; (iii) history of organic brain damage; and (iv) ongoing exposure to threat. Physical or sexual abuse victims would not be included due to the need of involving specialist services. Of all the participants, 66% of them were boys, 51% were Black, 44% of the White, whereas 5% are Latino. The mean age of the children was 6.6 years. All the stu...