Individual Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Using Mantram Repetition: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract

In a sample of veterans with PTSD, individually delivered mantram repetition therapy was generally more effective than present-centered therapy for reducing PTSD symptom severity and insomnia.

Targeting hyperarousal: Mantram Repetition Program for PTSD in US veterans

“…MRP+TAU led to significant improvements in PTSD symptoms; the strongest observed effects were on symptoms of hyperarousal (Bormann, Thorp, Wetherell, Golshan, & Lang, 2013). The MRP also has been associated with moderate-to-large reductions in insomnia with concurrent reductions in PTSD symptoms in veterans (Beck et al, 2017;Bormann et al, 2018). These findings are consistent with previous work that suggests that mantra-based meditation practices are associated with reduced physiological arousal (Lang et al, 2012).…”

“…Assessments occurred again at the end of treatment and 2 months after treatment completion. Methodology, including randomization procedures, is described in detail in the parent manuscript (Bormann et al, 2018). After randomization, the two groups did not differ in terms of age, gender, race, income, years of education, nor PTSD medication use.…”

“…The data used herein were drawn from a randomized, controlled trial of MRP as compared to Present-Centred Therapy, a non-specific psychotherapy control; the purpose of the trial was an evaluation of the efficacy of MRP (refer to Bormann et al, 2018). MRP resulted in significantly greater improvements in overall PTSD severity at posttreatment and 2-month follow-up (Bormann et al, 2018), but did not examine cluster-specific changes. The current secondary analysis aimed to explore whether MRP particularly targets hyperarousal (Bormann et al, 2013).…”

“…This study involved secondary analysis of data previously collected from 173 veterans enrolled in a multisite randomized controlled trial comparing individually delivered MRP to individually delivered Present-Centred Therapy (PCT) (NCT-01506323). Results of primary outcomes and subject flow in this trial have been reported previously (Bormann et al, 2018). Inclusion criteria were being age 18 or older, diagnosed with PTSD secondary to a military-related trauma, stabilized on psychotropic medications for at least 2 months prior to enrolment, and not concurrently participating in other PTSD-related therapies.…”

“…Missing data in our data set, because it is the final analysed data set from the parent trial, were limited to participants who did not have data for an entire time point; our analytic plan allows us to use available data at each time point, even when another time point is missing for a given individual. In the parent RCT (Bormann et al, 2018), item-level missingness was minimal, so multiple imputation was used to estimate missing item responses in these rare cases. Data were analysed with an intent-to-treat approach in a multilevel modelling framework to aid a more conservative estimation of treatment efficacy (Heritier, Gebski, & Keech, 2003) while recognizing the pragmatic challenges of longitudinal treatment research with a clinical population of Veterans.…”