Traumatic events can impact on your
ability to cope. Sometimes this can cause
people to develop post-traumatic stress
disorder, PTSD. Can we do something after
a traumatic event to help prevent people
developing PTSD? Psychological therapies
are one way health professionals think
they can help prevent PTSD. We know
individual psychological therapies
provided in a single session (such as
psychological debriefing) are not
effective in preventing PTSD. This
Cochrane systematic review asks whether
psychological therapies can prevent PTSD
when they are applied early and over
multiple sessions. The authors searched
for clinical studies called randomised
controlled trials that tested whether
psychological therapies were more
effective than usual treatment or other
types of treatment. They found 27 studies
with three thousand nine hundred and
sixty-three participants. When all the
results were pooled the authors found
evidence that psychological therapies,
applied early and over multiple sessions,
may be effective in preventing PTSD
three to six months after a traumatic
event.
However, confidence in this effect is
limited and further high-quality
research is required to help provide
more certainty about this treatment. Find
out more by reading the full review on
the Cochrane Library.
