The purpose of this study is to test if expressive writing about traumatic events has positive changes in women living with post-traumatic stress.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
40
Online writing sessions, each lasting approximately 45 minutes, once a week, conducted virtually. Participants will be instructed to write about either a major traumatic life experience or what the participant did the previous day.
Online writing sessions, each lasting approximately 45 minutes, once a week, conducted virtually. Participants will be instructed to write about either a major traumatic life experience or what the participant did the previous day in Spanish.
University of Miami
Miami, Florida, United States
Change in PTSD Symptoms as Assessed by the Impact of Event Scale
22-item self-report instrument that corresponds to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) symptoms of PTSD over last 7 days on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely) The IES has a total score ranging from 0 to 88 with the higher score indicating greater PTSD symptoms. The IES was assessed before and after the intervention and the change in score (mean and SD) is reported as the outcome measure.
Time frame: 6 weeks
Changes in Verbal Learning as Assessed by Hopkins Verbal Learning Task
Measures verbal learning and memory function based on the initial word learning list (0 no words recalled - 12 all words recalled).
Time frame: baseline
Change in Functional Activity of the Default Mode Network (DMN).
DMN is a large-scale network of interacting brain regions implicated in emotion and memory. Activity of the DMN hub indexed by Beta weight of activity within the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) was compared as a contrast between the visualizing trauma vs. visualizing stress conditions of the exposure. The VMPFC hub of the default mode network is a region integral to emotion regulation and is shown to be active during the use of cognitive-emotional regulation tasks (Andrewes and Jenkins, 2019). Hence, a randomization related increase in VMPFC activity while processing traumatic memories is associated with greater task engagement and cognitive-emotion regulation, which is a positive outcome.
Time frame: 6 weeks
Change in Salivary Measures of Stress Reactivity.
200 uL of saliva will be used for immunosorbent assay of salivary alpha amylase (sAA) measured by picograms per milliliter
Time frame: 6 weeks
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