INTRODUCTION — Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents is a severe, often chronic, and impairing mental disorder. PTSD is seen in some children (and not others) after exposure to traumatic experiences involving actual or threatened injury to themselves or others.
PTSD is characterized by intrusive thoughts and reminders of the traumatic experience(s), avoidance of trauma reminders, negative mood and cognitions related to the traumatic experience(s), and physiological hyperarousal that lead to significant social, school, and interpersonal problems. PTSD can occur even in toddlers (one to two years old) [1,2].
This topic will address psychosocial treatment of PTSD in children, including early intervention to prevent the development of PTSD. Pharmacotherapy for PTSD in children is reviewed separately. The epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, course, assessment, and diagnosis of PTSD in children are also addressed separately, as are acute stress disorder, PTSD, and dissociative PTSD in adults. (See "Pharmacotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents" and "Posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents: Epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, course, assessment, and diagnosis" and "Posttraumatic stress disorder in adults: Epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, course, assessment, and diagnosis" and "Acute stress disorder in adults: Epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, course, and diagnosis" and "Dissociative aspects of posttraumatic stress disorder: Epidemiology, clinical manifestations, assessment, and diagnosis".)
APPROACH TO TREATMENT — Our approach to treating posttraumatic stress disorder in children, including selecting among psychotherapies and medications, is described separately. (See "Approach to treating posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents".)
TRAUMA-FOCUSED PSYCHOTHERAPIES — Several trauma-focused psychotherapies have been found to be efficacious in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or subthreshold PTSD symptoms [3,4]. These interventions include individual and group models, as well as models tailored to meet the needs of specific subgroups.
Mechanisms of treatment — PTSD is conceptualized as a disorder of fear conditioning that is both overgeneralized and fails to extinguish normally. Biological, learning, and social/environmental factors are implicated in the development and maintenance of child PTSD, suggesting the need for nuanced approaches to treatment.
Trauma elicits strong emotional responses (eg, fear, anger). Through operant conditioning, children associate other stimuli (eg, people, places, smells, or internal feelings) that were present at the time of the trauma ("trauma reminders") with those highly negative emotional responses. In an attempt to avoid these negative emotions, children avoid these trauma reminders [5].
Individual trauma-focused CBT — Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) for children and adolescents with PTSD is a parallel child and parent (or primary caregiver) treatment model that incorporates cognitive-behavioral, developmental, neurobiological, attachment, family, and empowerment principles. Goals include helping children and parents gain resiliency and coping skills, master learned and over-generalized avoidance of feared trauma memories, make more adaptive meaning of traumatic experiences, and resume optimal developmental trajectories. The efficacy of TF-CBT is described below. (See 'Efficacy' below.)
Children with trauma-related symptoms can benefit from trauma-focused psychotherapy whether or not they meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD.
Phases and components — TF-CBT is comprised of multiple components and is provided in three phases. Within each treatment session, therapy is provided in individual, parallel sessions to the child and the parent (or caregiver, hereafter "parent"), and in conjoint child-parent sessions as described below.
●Stabilization phase – Includes psychoeducation, parenting skills, relaxation skills, affect modulation skills, and cognitive processing skills.
●Trauma narration and processing phase – Includes trauma narration and processing.
●Integration and consolidation phase – Includes in vivo mastery, conjoint child-parent sessions, and enhancing safety.
The components of these phases, which spell out the acronym "PPRACTICE," are briefly described below:
●Psychoeducation – Information is provided about the connection between the child’s past (or ongoing) trauma experiences, trauma reminders, and the child’s presenting trauma symptoms, as well as information about the commonality of these responses following trauma.
●Parenting skills – Effective parenting strategies are provided and practiced with the parent. These include skills such as praise, selective attention, and using functional behavioral analysis (eg, changing antecedents and consequences) to effectively manage behavioral trauma impact.
●Relaxation skills – Relaxation strategies (eg, focused breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, exercise, visualization) are provided, individualized, and practiced to reverse physiological trauma impact, including in response to trauma reminders.
●Affect modulation skills – Feeling identification and modulation skills (eg, verbal expression of negative feelings, seeking social support, positive distraction strategies, problem solving) are provided, individualized, and practiced, including in response to trauma reminders.
●Cognitive processing skills – Identifying relationships among general negative thought patterns (eg, "I don’t have any friends"), negative feelings (eg, angry), and behaviors (eg, fighting with peers), and learning to generate more accurate or helpful thoughts (eg, "Jesse likes me") in order to feel better (eg, less mad) and behave differently (eg, ask Jesse to play at recess). These skills help children and parents to gain mastery over many negative feelings and behaviors and prepare them for more specific trauma-related cognitive processing in the next phase.
●Trauma narration and processing – During this phase, the therapist helps the child to develop a detailed narrative of his or her personal trauma experiences and to cognitively process these experiences using the skills described above. This component is an interactive, therapeutic process that occurs between the therapist and child (and between the therapist and parent, as the therapist shares the content of the child’s narrative with the parent). It is believed that PTSD symptoms (eg, avoidance, negative cognitions, negative feelings, and negative behaviors) are diminished through expressing trauma-related information and addressing maladaptive cognitions related to this material.
●In vivo mastery of trauma reminders – For children who have over-generalized fear of trauma-related stimuli in the environment (eg, avoid the bathroom or bedroom where past abuse occurred but that is now safe; avoid attending school where they were previously bullied but are now safe), in vivo exposure is used to gain adaptive functioning.
●Conjoint child-parent sessions – One or more conjoint child-parent sessions are included to enhance direct child-parent communication about trauma (eg, sharing the child’s trauma narrative directly with the parent, safety planning, and other individualized issues).
●Enhancing safety – Trauma entails disruption of safety; reconstituting the child’s actual and sense of safety is critical for recovery. Safety skills appropriate to the child’s developmental level and living circumstances are provided and practiced with child and parent.
Efficacy — Multiple randomized clinical trials have compared TF-CBT with active treatments or controls for PTSD in children, collectively finding that TF-CBT reduced PTSD symptoms compared with controls [3,6-13]. Findings for improvement in associated symptoms (ie, depression, anxiety, behavior problems, maladaptive cognitions, and parental difficulties) have shown some variation but have been mostly positive. A meta-analysis of three trials with a total of 98 youth with PTSD reported that CBT led to reduced PTSD symptoms one month after treatment compared with controls (standard mean difference = -1.34, 95% CI -1.79 to -0.89) [3]. Clinical trials have shown efficacy for children exposed to sexual abuse, domestic violence, war, and multiple or complex trauma [7-13].
As an example, the largest randomized trial was a multi-site trial of 220 children (ages 8 to 14 years) with symptoms in each cluster of DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for PTSD, and a history of multiple traumas (mean = 3.4) including an index trauma of validated sexual abuse. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive 12 sessions of TF-CBT or Child Centered Therapy (CCT), both provided weekly to child and parent. At the end of treatment, the TF-CBT group experienced reductions in PTSD symptoms and in the proportion meeting diagnostic criteria for PTSD, compared with the CCT group; effect sizes were medium to large [8]. There have been several international replications [14] that have shown similar effect sizes and additionally, showed an effect on ICD-11 complex PTSD [15] and evidence of longer-term effect [16]. Additionally studies have shown the positive impact of TF-CBT in low income countries with a focus on parental bereavement.
Administration — TF-CBT is typically provided to individual children once weekly during hourly sessions for a duration of 12 to 25 sessions. The duration of treatment and proportionality among its phases are influenced by the child’s clinical presentation, with children who have more typical PTSD receiving a shorter duration (12 to 16 sessions), and children who have more complex PTSD receiving a longer duration (16 to 25 sessions) [17].
Clinicians typically monitor children’s responses to treatment through child self-reported ratings of PTSD symptom severity. This is best accomplished in clinical practice using a self-report instrument such as the Child PTSD Symptom Scale or, for young children, the parent reported instrument Young Children’s PTSD Checklist.
Individual TF-CBT has been modified to treat groups of children with PTSD and to treat preschool-aged children. (See 'Group therapies' below and 'Therapies for preschool children' below.)
Availability — More than 150,000 therapists in the United States have completed all TF-CBT training and consultation requirements, and there are more than 3000 nationally certified therapists in all 50 of the United States. Clinicians and consumers in the United States can identify trained, experienced therapists in their localities at https://tfcbt.org. The therapy has been implemented internationally, yet availability varies widely and efforts to scale up dissemination and implementation continue.
Training — Materials for clinician training in TF-CBT include information online, books, and manuals [18,19].
Standard TF-CBT training includes the following required elements: completion of TF-CBTWeb2.0; two-day face-to-face training with an approved TF-CBT trainer and 12 consultation calls (typically twice monthly for six months), or participation in an approved TF-CBT learning collaborative. Training in the United States is available from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network at www.nctsn.org. Efforts are underway to disseminate a validated model for training lay counselors in low-resource countries [20] and to use telemedicine to implement TF-CBT [21].
Other individual trauma-focused therapies — Other trauma-focused therapies based on cognitive and/or behavioral principles and supported by at least one clinical trial in youth with PTSD or PTSD symptoms include:
Combined parent-child (CPC)-CBT — CPC-CBT differs from TF-CBT in that it includes parents who perpetrated physical abuse. CPC-CBT includes the following elements along with the components of TF-CBT [22]:
●A stronger focus on developing noncoercive parenting skills.
●Joint parent-child meetings during every session.
●Abuse clarification – The abusive parent takes full responsibility for the past abuse, alleviates any child blame, and addresses other child’s maladaptive cognitions related to the abuse.
A clinical trial in physically abused children and their abusive parents compared CPC-CBT provided to child and to parent with cognitive therapy provided to parents alone. At the end of treatment, the CPC-CBT group had greater reductions in children’s PTSD symptoms and better parenting practices compared with the parent cognitive therapy group, with a medium effect size [22].
Trauma affect regulation: Guide for education and therapy (TARGET) — TARGET is a type of TF-CBT developed specifically for teens with complex trauma. Complex trauma, which is not in DSM-5 but is proposed for inclusion in the International Classification of Diseases, differs from non-complex PTSD in the subject’s history of chronic trauma and, in addition to core PTSD features, the presence of prominent features of affective dysregulation, negative self-concept, and interpersonal disturbances [23]. TARGET may have specific applicability for the juvenile justice population.
A clinical trial randomly assigned 59 delinquent girls (age 13 to 17 years) with full or partial PTSD to TARGET or relational supportive therapy [24]. TARGET was superior to relational supportive psychotherapy for improving PTSD symptoms, the main outcome (medium effect sizes), as well as anxiety symptoms (small effect size) in this population, while relational therapy was superior for improving hope (medium effect size) and anger (small effect size).
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) — EMDR differs from TF-CBT in that [25]:
●EMDR incorporates saccadic eye movements during exposure.
●The trauma narrative is completed differently in EMDR: The child imagines a scene from the trauma, focusing on the accompanying cognition and arousal, while tracking the movement of the therapist’s fingers in the child’s visual field.
●Parental involvement is optional in EMDR.
●The duration of treatment is generally shorter for EMDR (approximately eight sessions) than TF-CBT (8 to 24 sessions).
Two well-designed clinical trials of EMDR in children have shown mixed results:
●A clinical trial randomly assigned 33 youth ages 6 to 16 years with DSM-IV PTSD from mixed traumas to EMDR or a wait list control condition. No difference in overall PTSD symptoms was seen between the two groups; EMDR was superior in improving re-experiencing symptoms (medium effect size) compared with the control group [26].
●A clinical trial in 48 children with PTSD symptoms found no difference in outcomes between EMDR and TF-CBT with regard to PTSD symptoms or efficiency; however, TF-CBT was more efficacious in improving depressive and ADHD symptoms [27].
Other clinical trials of EMDR in children have suffered from methodologic shortcomings, including small sample sizes [28]. EMDR is described further separately.
Cognitive-based trauma therapy (CBTT) — CBTT differs from TF-CBT in that it does not include relaxation and has a specific focus on integrating cognitive restructuring throughout treatment. A small clinical trial in children and adolescents with a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of PTSD following single incident traumas found large effect sizes for improvement in PTSD, anxiety, and depressive symptoms with CBTT compared with a wait list control condition [29]. Positive effects of CBTT were partially mediated by improvements in children’s maladaptive cognitions as predicted by this cognitive-based model.
Kid narrative exposure therapy (KidNET) — Adapted from adult narrative exposure therapy, this treatment differs from TF-CBT in that it primarily utilizes the trauma narration and cognitive processing components, with relatively little focus on other treatment components. This treatment is particularly applicable for children exposed to war, refugee, or migrant conditions. A small clinical trial in 26 refugee children with PTSD found that KidNET was superior to a wait list control condition for improving PTSD symptoms and functional impairment with large effect sizes [30].
Group therapies — In schools and similar congregant settings, it is more efficient to provide trauma treatment in groups rather than individually. There are a number of models of trauma-focused group CBT that have been found to be efficacious for children with PTSD symptoms. The most extensively evaluated and disseminated is Cognitive Behavioral Interventions for Trauma in Schools. Other efficacious trauma-focused group CBT models have been adapted to address specific types of trauma
Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools (CBITS) — CBITS is a group psychosocial treatment for children with PTSD or PTSD symptoms [31]. CBITS incorporates cognitive behavioral principles with peer support and resiliency modeling to help children overcome learned trauma avoidance and gain adaptive skills. School-based group treatment greatly expands access to mental health services.
CBITS has been developed for schoolchildren ages 10 to 15 years who have one or more disclosed traumas and PTSD or significant PTSD symptoms. Evaluation of CBITS for primary school children is underway. Students are typically identified for inclusion in CBITS based on school screening using a PTSD self-report instrument, such as the Child PTSD Symptom Scale.
A primary trauma of child abuse or domestic violence may be a contraindication for CBITS participation in some schools, since some administrators and/or parents believe that these issues should not be addressed in the school setting.
CBITS treatment is provided over the course of 10 school-based group sessions. Groups of six to eight children meet for approximately one hour during school for weekly sessions. The contents of CBITS include the same components as TF-CBT. Children develop personal trauma narratives during two additional individual "break out" sessions that occur separately from the group sessions. Parents of each child are offered the opportunity to take part in parallel parent groups. Teachers receive education about trauma impact and management of trauma symptoms in educational settings. PTSD and depressive symptoms are typically monitored at pre- and posttreatment for improvement using self-report instruments.
CBITS has been shown to be efficacious when delivered by trained school-based mental health clinicians in one large clinical trial and two quasi-randomized studies [25,32,33]. In one randomized trial, 126 sixth-grade students who reported exposure to violence and had PTSD symptoms were randomized to receive a 10-session CBITS group treatment or to a wait list control [32]. After three months, CBITS students had significantly greater improvement in PTSD symptoms than those assigned to the wait list condition; after treatment, the CBITS group mean scores were in the nonclinical range, whereas mean scores for the wait list group remained in the clinical range (large effect size). Significantly lower scores in the intervention group were also seen for depression and psychosocial dysfunction. Similar results were obtained in the quasi-randomized studies [32,33].
Clinician training via a free CBITS online course is available from the CBITS developers at http://cbitsprogram.org. A CBITS manual [31] and other implementation materials are available. Training in the CBITS model includes face-to-face training, phone consultation, or participation in a CBITS learning collaborative.
CBITS has been widely disseminated to schools in the United States and internationally, but many schools do not have CBITS therapists available. This has led to the development of a variant of CBITS, Supporting Students Exposed to Trauma [34], which can be provided by educators, and thus could be disseminated more easily. Preliminary study suggests that implementation of this approach is feasible and acceptable [34]; further study of its efficacy is needed.
Trauma grief components treatment (TGCT) — TGCT differs from other group CBT interventions in that it is somewhat longer (17 sessions) and includes both trauma-focused and grief-focused treatment components that aim to address PTSD and maladaptive grief responses, respectively. TGCT is particularly appropriate for teens who have PTSD symptoms and maladaptive grief related to war, terrorism, or other circumstances of traumatic death.
A clinical trial in 127 war-exposed Bosnian adolescents with symptoms of PTSD, depression, or maladaptive grief found that school-based TGCT was superior to a school-based psychoeducation and skills comparison condition for improving PTSD and maladaptive grief responses with medium to large effect sizes [35].
ERASE-Stress — Extending and enhancing resiliency amongst students experiencing (ERASE)-Stress is a 16-session, teacher-delivered resiliency-building intervention designed specifically for children and adolescents who have been exposed to terrorism or war. While CBITS is a clinician-delivered intervention provided to children with trauma-related symptoms, ERASE-Stress is provided by teachers to all exposed children, either to prevent the emergence of symptoms or as treatment of symptoms when present.
Two quasi-randomized controlled trials comparing ERASE-Stress with wait list control conditions for 142 children and 154 adolescents in Israel, respectively, found that children assigned to receive ERASE-Stress experienced greater improvement in PTSD symptoms (medium effect sizes), as well as in somatic complaints and anxiety [36,37]. Randomized trials have not been conducted.
Group trauma-focused CBT — The group application of TF-CBT does not differ from the individual modality except that it is often provided in nonschool settings, eg, residential treatment centers, community or religious centers, or nongovernmental organizations. The trauma narrative TF-CBT treatment phase is provided in individual “break out” sessions that are provided in addition to the group sessions.
Two randomized trials have compared culturally modified group TF-CBT with wait list controls, one in 52 Congolese war-exposed sexually exploited girls and the other in 50 war-exposed Congolese teen boys, respectively. Both trials found that TF-CBT, compared with the control conditions, resulted in greater improvement in symptoms of PTSD, depression, and anxiety, as well as in conduct and pro-social behaviors (large effect sizes for each result) [12,13].
Therapies for preschool children — DSM-5 describes developmental differences in how PTSD is manifested in young children [1]. Typical PTSD symptoms are manifestations of young children’s basic fears (eg, body damage, abandonment, loss of caregiver). With limited verbal and cognitive abilities, young children are particularly dependent on and trusting of caregivers to provide safety. When trauma occurs, this safety and trust is disrupted.
Effective trauma treatments for young children must rebuild the young child’s trust that the caregiver will keep the child safe and the caregiver’s ability to do so. This has been accomplished through attachment-based models that primarily focus on the child-parent relationship and by CBT models that focus on enhancing child-parent resiliency skills, communication, positive parenting, and the caregiver’s ability to promote safety.
Child-Parent Psychotherapy — Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), developed for young children (birth to six years) who have experienced a trauma and their parent(s) or caretaking adult, is a dyadic attachment-based psychotherapy focused on supporting and strengthening the parent-child relationship as a way to heal the negative impacts of interpersonal trauma. Although CPP has some CBT elements, it is primarily based on attachment and psychodynamic theory. CPP is particularly valuable for very young children (birth to three years) and other young children (eg, those with developmental delays) who cannot express their emotions verbally but do so through play; the CPP therapist helps the parent to understand and make more benign meaning of the child’s play, behaviors, and interactions with the parent.
As a longer-term treatment approach (one year), CPP provides more sustained interventions to the child and parent and thus may be particularly helpful for parents who are highly dysregulated due to personal experiences of domestic violence. Targets of intervention include:
●Addressing parental and child maladaptive representations of self and each other
●Developing a joint trauma narrative to identify and address trauma triggers
●Developing more satisfying interpersonal relationships, activities, routines, and goals
A randomized trial compared CPP with case management and community treatment referral for 75 preschool children with PTSD stemming from domestic violence [38]. After one year of weekly sessions monitored for fidelity, children receiving CPP experienced greater improvement in PTSD symptoms (medium effect size), as well as for total behavior problems (small effect size), relative to children receiving the comparison condition. Mothers receiving CPP also exhibited significantly greater decrease in avoidance symptoms and a trend toward reduction in their own personal PTSD symptoms.
CPP is provided in 40 to 50 weekly dyadic child-parent sessions with additional parent sessions provided as needed. Clinicians typically monitor young children’s PTSD and behavioral symptoms systematically; a developmentally appropriate instrument should be used, such as the YCPC described above. Parental symptoms may also be monitored if a subject of clinical attention.
CPP training materials, including published treatment manuals written by the treatment developers [39,40], handouts, and other resources, are available. Training in the CPP model includes initial face-to-face training and participation in one year or more of ongoing consultation calls or participation in a learning collaborative during which CPP cases are presented and discussed. Training is available from the treatment developer and expert trainers, as well as through learning collaborative sponsored by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (www.nctsn.org).
CBITS and CPP dissemination is expanding internationally and across the United States, with large state-wide dissemination efforts resulting in more than 10,000 trained therapists in each of these models across the United States [41]. A CPP certification program is under development.
TF-CBT for Preschoolers — TF-CBT therapists use structured play strategies to implement the CBT components with preschoolers [42,43]. Two clinical trials have examined preschool children’s response to TF-CBT. A clinical trial compared TF-CBT with nondirective supportive therapy (NST) in 86 children ages three to six years with at least five PTSD symptoms following an index trauma of sexual abuse [10]. Children receiving TF-CBT experienced significantly greater improvement in PTSD symptoms compared with the NST group (medium effect size), as well as in internalizing and sexual behavior problems.
A clinical trial/dismantling study compared the efficacy of four different versions of TF-CBT in children ages 4 to 11 years old with an index trauma of sexual abuse [44]: with the trauma narrative phase versus without; and provided over eight versus 16 sessions. Children assigned to all four TF-CBT conditions showed improvement in PTSD symptoms with large effect sizes. Children assigned to the eight-session group with a trauma narrative phase showed greater improvement than other groups in internalizing symptoms of fear and anxiety, while children assigned to receive 16 sessions without the trauma narrative phase showed greater improvement in externalizing behavior symptoms. Younger age (four to six years) did not significantly moderate these results. A version of the stepped care model of TF-CBT for preschool children has been developed allowing parents to provide much of the intervention at home. This model has demonstrated similar impact to standard TF-CBT at lower cost [45].
Preschool PTSD treatment (PPT) — PPT includes all TF-CBT components but differs from TF-CBT in that the parent fully participates throughout the entire treatment session. A clinical trial of 62 children ages three to six years with at least five PTSD symptoms following mixed traumas were randomized to PPT or wait list control condition [46]. Despite high drop-out rates, PPT showed significantly greater improvement in PTSD symptoms with large effect sizes.
Therapies for PTSD and SUD — Two treatment models have been developed and tested to address PTSD and comorbid substance use disorders (SUD).
Seeking Safety — Seeking Safety is an adult CBT model for addressing comorbid PTSD and SUD that was modified for teens [47]. It includes most TF-CBT PRACTICE components, but not trauma narration and processing. Other differences from TF-CBT include:
●Safety, not PTSD recovery, is the overarching goal
●A focus on ideals that have been lost through substance abuse and PTSD
●Grounding techniques (eg, learning to maintain one’s focus on the present moment)
A pilot clinical trial randomly assigned 33 adolescent females to receive Seeking Safety showed improvement on some subscale scores of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children and some subscales of the Personal Experiences Inventory (for substance use) compared with those assigned to treatment as usual [47]. Changes in overall scores for substance use and PTSD symptoms were not reported.
Seeking Safety for adults with PTSD and SUD is discussed separately. (See "Treatment of co-occurring anxiety-related disorders and substance use disorders in adults".)
Risk Reduction Family Therapy (RRFT) — RRFT is an application of TF-CBT that includes additional components for reducing risk of substance abuse. A pilot clinical trial randomly assigned 30 adolescents with histories of sexual abuse and substance abuse to RRFT or treatment as usual, finding that participants assigned to RRFT experienced greater improvement in PTSD, substance use, depressive, and internalizing symptoms compared with participants assigned to treatment as usual (medium effect sizes) [48]. A limitation in the trial was a difference in functioning between groups at baseline.
PREVENTION — Most children develop some psychological symptoms in the immediate aftermath following trauma exposure; these usually remit spontaneously. In a minority of children, these develop into posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is diagnosed if symptoms meeting a diagnostic threshold, accompanied by dysfunction or distress, persist for at least one month. Early interventions in the aftermath of a traumatic exposure have been developed and tested with the aim of preventing the subsequent development of PTSD.
Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention (CFTSI) — CFTSI is a CBT-based four- to six-session psychosocial intervention developed to begin within the first month after acute trauma exposure. The intervention includes psychoeducation, building awareness and parent-child communication about symptoms, and skill building to address prominent, mutually selected symptoms.
A clinical trial found that CFTSI prevented the development of chronic PTSD following trauma exposure in children. The trial randomly assigned 106 children within 30 days of traumatic exposure to receive CFTSI or supportive counseling [49]. At follow-up 90 days after trauma exposure, participants who received CFTSI were 65 percent less likely to meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD compared with the control group.
Critical incidence stress debriefing (CISD) — CISD (also known as psychological debriefing) typically consists of a one-session debriefing session following trauma exposure, during which children describe and process their experiences with peers exposed to the same or similar experiences. A clinical trial comparing CISD with a wait list control in 132 children following road traffic accidents found no difference in preventing the development of PTSD [50]. Clinical trials have similarly resulted in negative findings for CISD in preventing PTSD in adults following a traumatic event [51]. (See "Treatment of acute stress disorder in adults", section on 'Psychological debriefing'.)
Other interventions — A two-session CBT-based intervention has been tested for its efficacy in preventing PTSD and was found to be ineffective. A clinical trial in 132 children within 30 days of a road traffic injury found no difference in subsequent rates of PTSD between subjects receiving the intervention and those assigned to the control group [52].
SOCIETY GUIDELINE LINKS — Links to society and government-sponsored guidelines from selected countries and regions around the world are provided separately. (See "Society guideline links: Anxiety and trauma-related disorders in children".)
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
●Our approach to treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children, including selecting among psychotherapies and medications, is described separately. (See "Approach to treating posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents".)
●Several trauma-focused psychotherapy models have been found to be efficacious in the treatment of PTSD or PTSD symptoms beneath the diagnostic threshold for the disorder. These interventions include individual and group models, as well as models tailored to meet the needs of specific subgroups. (See 'Trauma-focused psychotherapies' above.)
●School-based screening and group therapy interventions are an efficacious and relatively cost-effective means of providing trauma-focused therapy. The most extensively evaluated and disseminated model is Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions for Trauma in Schools. (See 'Group therapies' above.)
●Effective trauma-focused psychotherapies for young children seek to rebuild the child’s trust that the caregiver is willing and able to keep the child safe. Interventions found to be efficacious include Child-Parent Psychotherapy, an attachment based model, (Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) for Preschoolers, and Preschool PTSD Treatment. (See 'Therapies for preschool children' above.)
●Psychosocial interventions have been developed to treat both PTSD and substance use disorders in patients with these dual diagnoses. Seeking Safety is an adult, group CBT model that has been modified for teens. Risk Reduction Family Therapy is an application of TF-CBT that includes additional components for reducing risk of substance abuse. (See 'Therapies for PTSD and SUD' above.)
●Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention, a CBT-based intervention developed for delivery in the first month after acute trauma exposure, aiming to prevent the subsequent development of PTSD, was found in a clinical trial to reduce the proportion of patients subsequently diagnosed with PTSD. Critical incident stress debriefing, a one-session debriefing session following trauma exposure, has been found to be ineffective in children and adults. (See 'Prevention' above.)
