Predictors of outcome in female sexual assault survivors receive PE or EMDR

Predictors for response to treatment in a controlled study aimed to evaluate the relative efficacy of Prolonged Exposure (PE) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) compared to a no-treatment wait-list control (WAIT) in the treatment of PTSD in adult female rape victims were examined. In this study, 74 participants with PTSD were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions to achieve 20 completers per group. Independent Assessors blind to the treatment condition administered standard measures of PTSD and related symptoms. Improvement in PTSD, depression, dissociation, and state anxiety was significantly greater in both PE and EMDR group than the WAIT group. PE and EMDR did not differ significantly for change from baseline to either post-treatment or 6-month follow up measurement for any quantitative scale. EMDR subjects with 2 or more comorbid diagnoses, however, improved significantly less than all other active treatment subjects. At post-treatment and 6months, 95% and 94% of PE subjects and 75% and 74% EMDR subjects no longer met DSM-IV PTSD criteria, respectively. At the 6-month follow-up assessment, 78% of those who received PE and 35% of those who received EMDR met criteria for good end state functioning (p=.017).

Conference

English

Barbara O. Rothbaum
F. R. Leifker
Millie Astin

Rothbaum, B. O., Leifker, F. R., & Astin, M. (2008, November). Predictors of outcome in female sexual assault survivors receive PE or EMDR. Presentation at the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies 24th Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL