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A new study has demonstrated how a specific form of therapy can help improve symptoms in children living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental health condition that develops after witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event.
Researchers from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England have examined the effectiveness of trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for treating young children who have been subjected to abuse, violence or serious accidents.
CBT is a treatment for mental health conditions that helps individuals to identify any negative thoughts they may have and teaches them self-help strategies to challenge and reduce these unhelpful thought patterns.
According to the World Health Organisation, roughly 3.9% of the world’s population has experienced PTSD at some stage in their life. While trauma-focused CBT is already used to help treat the disorder in adults, children who experience multiple traumas are often considered harder to treat.
“Recent research has shown that more than 7% of young people in the UK will have developed PTSD at some point by the age of 18,” says Richard Meiser-Stedman, the lead researcher of the study from the University of East Anglia, UK.
The researchers hope that their study, one of the first and largest to test the approach in children, will provide crucial support to some of the most vulnerable young people in the community.
“PTSD is a deeply distressing and disabling psychiatric condition,” says Meiser-Stedman.
“For many young people it may persist for years or even decades if untreated.”
The researchers selected 120 children and adolescents aged 8 to 17 who were seeking mental health services across the UK after experiencing multiple traumas to be a part of the study. Many of the participants were also experiencing other mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.
Half of these participants received the standard treatment currently offered at mental health services, while the others received trauma-focused CBT. Throughout the trial, participants receiving CBT were suggested to attend 15 sessions that ran for 60 to 90 minutes each.
“We wanted to find out whether trauma-focused CBT, which concentrates on helping young people make sense of their experiences, could help,” says Meiser-Stedman.
The researchers observed that immediately after therapy, trauma-focused CBT was not dramatically better than the typical treatment.
However, after 11 months of therapy, participants who received trauma-focused therapy showed significantly greater improvements in not just PTSD symptoms but also depression, anxiety and regulating emotions.
“These findings are really encouraging,” says Meiser-Stedman.
“They suggest that trauma focused therapy can be an effective and safe treatment for young people who have gone through more than one trauma, especially when they also have other mental health issues.”
Very few young people dropped out of the therapy and despite many of the participants’ experiencing very severe symptoms, the researchers observed no serious side effects. The results give the researchers hope that a wider scale trauma-focused CBT treatment service could operate effectively in community settings.
“It also worked in real-world clinics, not just controlled research settings – so it’s likely to help in everyday practice,” says Meiser-Stedman.
“We hope our work will influence how PTSD is treated in young people across the UK and beyond, particularly those who’ve experienced repeated or long-term trauma.”
The study has been published in the journal World Psychiatry.
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact: Lifeline 13 11 14 Beyond Blue 1300 22 46 36 Kids Helpline 1800 551 800 Headspace 1800 650 890 (in Australia)