Trial reportBehaviour research and therapy2021
The temporal sequence of change in PTSD symptoms and hypothesized mediators in Cognitive Processing Therapy and Written Exposure Therapy for PTSD.
Trial report in Behaviour research and therapy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
12 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Identifying predictors of long-term treatment outcomes using narratives from written exposure therapy and cognitive processing therapy for PTSD.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2025Trial
- Associations among sleep quality, cognitive processing therapy, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in a primary care setting.Journal of traumatic stress · 2025Trial
- The effect of time since index trauma on trauma-related beliefs.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2024Trial
- Childhood-related PTSD: the role of cognitions in EMDR and imagery rescripting.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2024Trial
- Using Client Narratives to Identify Predictors of Outcome in Written Exposure Therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy.Behavior therapy · 2023Trial
- Evaluating self-efficacy as a treatment mechanism during an intensive treatment program for posttraumatic stress disorder.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2025Article
- Obsessive Beliefs in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Journal of rational-emotive and cognitive-behavior therapy : RET · 2025Article
- State of the Science: Written Exposure Therapy for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Behavior therapy · 2024Review
- Study protocol and rationale for a pilot randomized clinical trial comparing processing of positive memories technique with supportive counseling for PTSD.Contemporary clinical trials · 2024Article
- Alcohol-Related Problems As Moderators of PTSD Symptom Change During Use of a Web-Based Intervention for Hazardous Drinking and PTSD.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2024Article
- Examining trauma cognition change trajectories among initial PTSD treatment non-optimal responders: a potential avenue to guide subsequent treatment selection.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2023Article
- Evaluating changes in negative posttrauma cognition as a mechanism of PTSD severity changes in two separate intensive treatment programs for veterans.BMC psychiatry · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
We examined whether extinction or changes negative trauma-related beliefs occur either prior to or concurrently with changes in posttraumatic stress symptoms among individuals who received either Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) or Written Exposure Therapy (WET) using statistical methods that permit proper discernment of temporal sequence. Community participants with PTSD (N = 126) were evenly randomized to 12 sessions of CPT or 5 sessions of WET. We assessed within- and between-session changes in arousal and valence and changes in trauma-related beliefs 6-, 12-, 24-, 36- and 60-weeks following the first treatment session. Between-session change in post-session emotional valence temporally preceded PTSD symptom reduction among participants who received WET but did not predict subsequent symptom reduction. Although negative trauma-related beliefs changed in parallel with and correlated with PTSD symptom reduction in both conditions, this change did not temporally precede symptom reduction. Our results are inconsistent with those from prior studies and suggest these constructs may more appropriately be characterized as correlates, rather than mediators, of symptom reduction. These results highlight the value of discernment of the temporal sequence of change between hypothesized mediators and symptoms and underscore that we still have much to learn about how evidence-based treatments reduce PTSD symptoms.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.