Trial reportDepression and anxiety2013
Sudden gains in prolonged exposure and sertraline for chronic PTSD.
Trial report in Depression and anxiety, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sudden Gains in Two Trauma-Focused Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Behavior therapy · 2022Trial
- Psychotherapy for PTSD - a scoping review of how change during treatment has been studied.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Article
- Predicting outcome of daycare cognitive behavioural therapy in a naturalistic sample of patients with PTSD: a machine learning approach.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2021Article
- Quetiapine augmentation of prolonged exposure therapy in veterans with PTSD and a history of mild traumatic brain injury: design and methodology of a pilot study.Military Medical Research · 2020Article
- Cognitive processes associated with sudden gains in cognitive therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder in routine care.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2020Article
- Article
- Enhancing Completion of Cognitive Processing Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder with Quetiapine in Veterans with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: a Case Series.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2019Article
- First-line therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder: A systematic review of cognitive behavioural therapy and psychodynamic approaches.Counselling and psychotherapy research · 2018Review
- An empirical review of potential mediators and mechanisms of prolonged exposure therapy.Clinical psychology review · 2017Review
- Sudden losses and sudden gains during a DBT-PTSD treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder following childhood sexual abuse.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSudden gains are significant, rapid improvements in symptoms, larger than typical between-session symptom reduction.([8]) Sudden gains in a large sample of individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have not been studied, and only one study has looked at it in pharmacotherapy, but not in PTSD. In the present study, we examined the occurrence of sudden gains in psychotherapy, specifically prolonged exposure (PE), and pharmacotherapy, specifically sertraline, for chronic PTSD.
methodSudden gains in PTSD symptoms (PTSD symptom scale self-report([25]) ) were assessed in 200 individuals with PTSD during 10 weeks of PE or sertraline.
resultsIndividuals in both PE (42.2%) and sertraline (31%) exhibited sudden gains. Individuals in PE made more gains toward the end of treatment (7.2%) than sertraline (2%, OR = 3.82). However, individuals in sertraline made larger gains during early treatment (M = 18.35, SD = 8.15) than PE (M = 12.53, SD = 5.16, d = .85). Notably, those on sertraline were more likely to exhibit a reversal of sudden gains than those in PE (OR = .23). Pointing to clinical significance, the presence of a sudden gain was associated with better reduction in symptoms from pre- to posttreatment (β = -.49).
conclusionsIndividuals in both PE and sertraline experienced gains, though sertraline was associated with earlier large but reversible gains, and PE was associated with later gains. This differential pattern of discontinuous change highlights potential differential mechanism for these therapies and marks important transition points for further detailed analyses of change mechanisms.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.