| resumeang: Discusses behavioral and cognitive treatements of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through a critical examination of 23 published efficacy studies. Three aspects were especially highlighted; study population, research protocol and treatment outcome. Despite the great variety of treatments and the presence of methodological design flaws in these studies, some conclusions regarding the efficacy of PTSD treatments emerged. The most effective of the latter included unimodal treatments that use direct therapy exposure (DTE), or multimodal treatments consisting of various interventions, 1 of which is a variant of DTE. Studies that included control groups showed no statistical differences with other treatments, although too few were conducted to be conclusive. Suggestions are made throughout this article on ways to remedy methodological design flaws and improve the empirical validity of PTSD treatments. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved). |
