Trial reportJournal of consulting and clinical psychology2017
Do changes in trauma-related beliefs predict PTSD symptom improvement in prolonged exposure and sertraline?
Trial report in Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 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
18 citing papers in PubMed, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lay-Led Intervention for War and Refugee Trauma: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2024Trial
- Change in posttraumatic stress disorder-related thoughts during treatment: Do thoughts drive change when pills are involved?Journal of traumatic stress · 2022Trial
- Prolonged Exposure and Sertraline Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Also Improve Multiple Indicators of Social Functioning.Journal of traumatic stress · 2020Trial
- Weekly Changes in Blame and PTSD Among Active-Duty Military Personnel Receiving Cognitive Processing Therapy.Behavior therapy · 2020Trial
- Changes in typical beliefs in response to complicated grief treatment.Depression and anxiety · 2020Trial
- Changes in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms over the course of prolonged exposure.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2018Trial
- Psychotherapy for PTSD - a scoping review of how change during treatment has been studied.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Article
- Trauma exposure as a predictor of general health outcomes and trauma-related beliefs among older adults living in an adverse environment.Aging & mental health · 2025Article
- Pretreatment characteristics associated with symptom reduction during group cognitive processing therapy versus exposure therapy for PTSD: an exploratory study of Veterans.Cognitive behaviour therapy · 2024Article
- Temporal sequencing of change in trauma-related beliefs and therapeutic alliance during prolonged exposure and sertraline for chronic PTSD.Psychotherapy research : journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research · 2024Article
- Changes in cognitive processes and coping strategies precede changes in symptoms during cognitive therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder.Behaviour research and therapy · 2023Article
- Posttraumatic cognitions and sexual assault: Understanding the role of cognition type in posttraumatic stress symptoms and problematic alcohol use.Journal of traumatic stress · 2022Article
- Resilience predicts posttraumatic cognitions after a trauma reminder task and subsequent positive emotion induction among veterans with PTSD.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2022Article
- Intranasal hydrogel of armodafinil hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin inclusion complex for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.Saudi pharmaceutical journal : SPJ : the official publication of the Saudi Pharmaceutical Society · 2022Article
- The role of social connectedness in buffering the effects of discrimination on post-trauma cognitions in forcibly displaced Muslims.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2022Article
- Islamic Trauma Healing: Integrating Faith and Empirically Supported Principles in a Community-Based Program.Cognitive and behavioral practice · 2021Article
- A systematic review of factors associated with outcome of psychological treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2020Review
- An empirical review of potential mediators and mechanisms of prolonged exposure therapy.Clinical psychology review · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveNegative trauma-related belief change has been found to predict subsequent improvement in symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in prolonged exposure (PE) and other therapies, consistent with several psychological theories of treatment change (e.g., Foa & Kozak, 1986). However, belief change has not been examined in selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as sertraline. We examined processes associated with symptom improvement in 2 treatments for PTSD, hypothesizing that belief change would robustly predict PTSD improvement in patients treated with PE but not those treated with sertraline, reflecting moderation by treatment.
methodPatients with chronic PTSD (N = 134; 78% women, 71.6% Caucasian, M = 38.1 years, SD = 11.8) received 10 weeks of PE or sertraline in a randomized, controlled trial. Patients reported PTSD and depression symptoms, and trauma-related beliefs (Post-Traumatic Cognitions Inventory; Foa, Ehlers, Clark, D Tolin, & Orsillo, 1999) at pretreatment, every treatment session, and posttreatment.
resultsUsing time-lagged mixed regression models, change in trauma-related beliefs predicted subsequent PTSD symptom improvement, an effect moderated by treatment and particularly strong in PE (d = 0.93) compared with sertraline (d = 0.35). Belief change also predicted depressive symptom improvement but more modestly and bidirectionally, with no difference by treatment modality.
conclusionsTrauma-related belief change precedes PTSD improvement more robustly in PE than in sertraline and with greater specificity compared with depressive symptoms. These findings highlight potentially divergent processes contributing to symptom change in these PTSD treatments, with belief change as a key mechanism of PE. (PsycINFO Database Record
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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.