How Important Is Reprocessing in Personalized Multicomponent Therapy? Analyzing Longitudinal Data of Inpatients With Severe PTSD

Abstract

Treatment guidelines for complex presentations of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are often cautious about the reprocessing of traumatic memories and recommend multicomponent treatments that are widely used in clinical practice. Yet, the role of reprocessing in these multicomponent treatments remains unknown. Using naturalistic data of 97 patients treated for PTSD, we used a linear mixed model to investigate the role of reprocessing for the outcome at discharge and at 6-month follow-up. Treatment effects were significant and large (g = 0.91–1.05). The final model showed good fit and explained 51% of the variance. There was a significant main effect of time (B = −8.1 [−11.5; −4.8], p < 0.001), as well as a reprocessing by time interaction (B = −17.2 [−30.5; −3.8], p = 0.012), indicating better outcomes with higher levels of reprocessing. Hence, maximizing the amount of reprocessing used in multicomponent treatments for PTSD may significantly enhance outcomes.