Prolonged Exposure Therapy Could Help Adolescent Girls with PTSD

There may be a new therapy for treating adolescent girls with PTSD. Scientists have found that a modified form of prolonged exposure therapy, in which patients revisit and recount aloud their trauma-related thoughts, feelings and situations, shows greater success than supportive counseling for treating adolescent PTSD patients who have been sexually abused.

Despite a high prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adolescents, evidence-based treatments like prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD have never been established for this age group. The major concern has been that prolonged exposure therapy, while the most established evidence-based treatment for adults with PTSD, could exacerbate PTSD symptoms in adolescent patients who have not mastered the coping skills necessary for this type of treatment.

"We hypothesized that prolonged exposure therapy could fill this gap and were eager to test its ability to provide benefit for adolescent patients," said Edna Foa, one of the researchers, in a news release.

During the course of the six-year study, the researchers examined the benefit of a prolonged exposure program called prolonged exposure-A (PE-A). This program was modified to meet the developmental stage of adolescents. The scientists then compared it with supportive counseling in 61 adolescent girls, ages 13-18, with sexual abuse-related PTSD.

So what did they find? The scientists assessed outcomes before treatment, mid-treatment and after treatment and at three, six and 12-month follow up. During treatment, the patients receiving PE-A demonstrated a greater decline in PTSD and depression symptom severity. They also showed an improvement in overall functioning. In fact, these differences were maintained throughout the 12-month follow up period.

"Another key finding of this research was that prolonged therapy can be administered in a community setting by professionals with no prior training in evidence-based treatments and can have a positive impact on this population," said Foa in a news release.

The findings are published in the journal JAMA.