Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Sexually Abused Children

Overview

The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of two psychological therapies used to treat PTSD in children who have recently been sexually abused: Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) vs Child Centered Therapy (CCT). Child sexual abuse is a common experience that has serious mental health consequences, including the development of PTSD and other abuse-related problems. All children will be assigned randomly (like tossing a coin) to receive either SAS-CBT or NST at each of two sites. In addition, the parents and the child will receive individual therapy for 12 weeks. The child will be monitored to evaluate his/her response to therapy. Assessments will take place before and just following treatment, and then 6 and 12 months post-treatment. A child may be eligible for this study if he/she: Has been sexually abused, is suffering from PTSD as a result of the abuse, and is 8 to 14 years old.

To evaluate the comparative efficacy of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) vs Child Centered Therapy (CCT) in decreasing symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following recent sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse is a common experience that has serious mental health consequences, including the development of PTSD and other abuse-related and general psychopathological symptoms. Patients are randomly assigned to receive either TF-CBT or CCT at each of two sites, and will be provided with 12 weeks of individual therapy for children and parents. Treatment is monitored for compliance with the respective treatment models through intensive supervision, audiotaping of sessions, rating of sessions with use of adherence checklists, and independent blind rating of audiotapes. Treatment outcome is evaluated through the use of several self-, parent-, and teacher-report standardized instruments, administered at pre- and post-treatment, and follow-up evaluations at 6 and 12 months. The project also assesses differential treatment impact by gender and ethnicity, and attempts to evaluate the impact of specific components of the treatment process in mediating treatment outcome. Specifically, the project evaluates the differential effectiveness of the two treatment modalities in improving the subject's abuse-related attributions and perceptions, parenting practices, familial adaptability and cohesiveness, parent support, and parental emotional reaction to the abuse, and the impact of improving these variables on treatment outcome.