Digital Interventions for PTSD Symptoms in the General Population: a Review
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Digital Interventions for PTSD Symptoms in the General Population: a Review Evgenia Stefanopoulou 1 & David Lewis 1 & Aneesah Mughal 1 & Jan Larkin 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract
There has been a significant development of digital interventions for the treatment of Post-Traumatic Symptom Disorder (PTSD) over the past two decades. However, the majority of research has examined their clinical efficacy for military service members and veteran populations whereas community-based trauma survivors have received significantly less attention. Their effectiveness for this population, therefore, remains unclear. The aim of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of digitally delivered psychological therapies to alleviate PTSD symptomatology in the general population. Findings showed that digitally delivered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT) produced more consistently significant improvements in PTSD symptoms, compared to interapy, expressive writing, psychoeducation, mindfulness, cognitive tasks and psychosocial interventions. iCBT - associated improvements were also independent of the focus (i.e. trauma vs. non-trauma) of the intervention, the provision of therapeutic support (e.g. guided vs. unguided), type of feedback (e.g. automated vs. individualised) or the number of sessions provided. Nevertheless, the number of included studies for subgroup analyses was relatively low. Digital interventions have an enormous potential to improve accessibility, efficiency, clinical effectiveness and personalisation of mental health interventions. Future research is needed to investigate further the use of a wider range of therapeutic approaches across different clinical and subclinical groups and settings and test the impact of these interventions (or components) against a wider range of comparison conditions (e.g. face to face CBT) with optimal power. Keywords PTSD . Trauma . Review . Digital . Online . Interventions
* Evgenia Stefanopoulou evgenia.stefanopoulou@turning–point.co.uk
1
Turning Point, Standon House, 21 Mansell Street, London E1 8AA, UK
Psychiatric Quarterly
Introduction Psychological trauma refers to a stressful life event that overpowers an individual’s coping mechanisms [1]. Examples of trauma include natural disasters, rape, physical assault, lifethreatening accidents and the sudden death of a loved one [2]. According to DSM –V criteria, most people are exposed to at least one event in their lives that is capable of eliciting an emotional response of such high magnitude as to be characterized as psychological trauma [3]. Nevertheless, there is significant variability in people’s adaptation to traumatic events as well as heterogeneity of how we are all being affected by these. For example, the experience of trauma can often contribute to the development of significant mental health difficulties. Specifically, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which refers to the experience of severe and distressing psychological symptoms after experiencing a trauma
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