The authors report on the development and initial validation of two brief measures of children’s posttraumatic symptoms: a child self-report and a parent report. Intended applications include postdisaster screening, tracking children’s recovery in research and clinical settings, and screening for posttraumatic stress among children with various presenting problems. A sample of 206 urban and rural schoolchildren, Grades 3 through 8, and their parents, completed these measures as well as a checklist of the child’s trauma-loss history. Findings provide preliminary support for the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, content validity, and criterion validity of each measure. We recommend cautious use of the measures, and suggest additional avenues of study.

Fourteen randomly assigned Iranian girls ages 12-13 years who had been sexually abused received up to 12 sessions of CBT or EMDR treatment. Assessment of post-traumatic stress symptoms and problem behaviours was completed at pre-treatment and 2 weeks post-treatment. Both treatments showed large effect sizes on the posttraumatic symptom outcomes, and a medium effect size on the behaviour outcome, all statistically significant. A non-significant trend on self-reported post-traumatic stress symptoms favoured EMDR over CBT. Treatment efficiency was calculated by dividing change scores by number of sessions; EMDR was significantly more efficient, with large effect sizes on each outcome. Limitations include small N, single therapist for each treatment condition, no independent verification of treatment fidelity, and no long-term follow-up. These findings suggest that both CBT and EMDR can help girls to recover from the effects of sexual abuse, and that structured trauma treatments can be applied to children in Iran.

The effectiveness of Stress Inoculation Training with Prolonged Exposure (SITPE) was compared to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Twenty-four participants who had a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) were randomly assigned to one of the treatment conditions. Participants were also their own wait-list control. Outcome measures included self-report and observer-rated measures of PTSD, and self-report measures of depression. On global PTSD measures, there were no significant differences between the treatments at the end of therapy. However on the subscale measures of the degree of intrusion symptoms, EMDR did significantly better than SITPE. At follow-up EMDR was found to lead to greater gains on all measures.

Background Building on previous research with disaster-exposed children and adolescents, a randomised clinical trial was performed in the treatment of trauma-related symptoms. In the current study two active treatments were compared among children in a broad age range and from a wide diversity of ethnic populations.Objective The primary aim was to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).Design Children (n=52, aged 4–18) were randomly allocated to either CBT (n=26) or EMDR (n=26) in a disaster mental health after-care setting after an explosion of a fireworks factory. All children received up to four individual treatment sessions over a 4–8 week period along with up to four sessions of parent guidance. Blind assessment took place pre- and post-treatment and at 3 months follow-up on a variety of parent-rated and self-report measures of post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology, depression, anxiety, and behaviour problems. Analyses of variance (general linear model repeated measures) were conducted on the intention-to-treat sample and the completers.Results Both treatment approaches produced significant reductions on all measures and results were maintained at follow-up. Treatment gains of EMDR were reached in fewer sessions.Conclusion Standardised CBT and EMDR interventions can significantly improve functioning of disaster-exposed children.

No abstract

No abstract

Training in the Fairy Tale model of trauma-informed treatment was provided to clinical and direct care staff working with 53 youth in a residential treatment facility. Compared to the year prior to training, in the year of the training the average improvement in presenting problems was increased by 34%, time to discharge was reduced by 39%, and rate of discharge to lower level of care was doubled. The inclusion of numerous interventions, along with limitations in implementation and evaluation, make it difficult to precisely identify the cause(s) of the improvement.Numerous treatment approaches have been tried with youth so severely troubled that they have been placed in residential treatment. These approaches generally involve at least several of the following: providing a safe, stable environment; mobilizing peer influence; arranging reinforcers This project was supported by grants from the OSHEI Foundation and the Fierle Family Foundation.

No abstract