EMDR vs paroxetine: A randomised control trial in PTSD survivors of war against terror in Pakistan

An ever-increasing number of survivors of ongoing war against terror in Pakistan are presenting with PTSD. EMDR and paroxetine are two widely accepted evidence based interventions found efficacious in patients of PTSD. No study is available that has compared the two widely different interventions amongst survivors of war trauma. Sixty male survivors of war against terror who fulfilled DSM IV-R criteria of PTSD were randomly allocated to group A (n=30) receiving weekly EMDR therapy and Group B (n=30) receiving paroxetine (20mg daily) at NUST Centre for Trauma Research and Psychosocial Interventions. The severity of the symptoms and therapeutic response was measured using PCL-M, a standardized psychometric tool, widely in use as an outcome measure. Baseline PCL-M scores of patients in both groups were compared with scores after six weeks treatment. A drop of a minimum of twenty points on PCL-M was considered a therapeutic response. At six weeks 96% of group A (EMDR group) showed a therapeutic response as compared to 36% in group B (paroxetine group). A significant difference (p=0.57) was found in the degree of response with EMDR responders having a greater drop in PCL-M scores as compared to those who responded to paroxetine. Similar trends were noticed at six months and EMDR continued to show efficacy superior to parooxetine. No significant difference in the demographic data or any other variable was found amongst the responders and non-responders in each group or across the two groups. At six weeks and six months of treatment, weekly EMDR therapy is superior to paroxetine (20mg daily) treatment in patients of PTSD consequent to war trauma.

Conference

English

Rana, M. (2014, January). EMDR vs paroxetine: A randomised control trial in PTSD survivors of war against terror in Pakistan. In Early interventions, acute stress, manmade/natural disasters, burnout. (Sombat Tapanya, Chair). Presentation at the 2nd EMDR Asia International Conference, Manila, The Philippines