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Emotional or educational debriefing after psychological trauma^*

Randomised controlled trial

Department of Psychiatry, Academic Medical Centre

Johannes B. Reitsma, MD, PhD

Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam

Ingrid V. E. Carlier, PhD

Centre of Work-Related Mental Disorders, Altrecht Mental Health Care, Utrecht

Berthold P. R. Gersons, MD, PhD

Department of Psychiatry, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Correspondence: Marit Sijbrandij, Academic Medical Centre, Department of Psychiatry, Tafelbergweg 25, 1105 BC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 20 5668783; fax: +31 20 6919019; email: e.m.sijbrandij{at}amc.uva.nl

Declaration of interest None.

Funding detailed in Acknowledgements.

^* Preliminary results were presented to the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies at their 18th and 21st annual conferences.

Background Recent studies show that individual single-session psychological debriefing does not prevent and can even aggravate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Aims We studied the effect of emotional ventilation debriefing and educational debriefing v. no debriefing on symptoms of PTSD, anxiety and depression.

Method We randomised 236 adult survivors of a recenttraumatic eventto either emotional ventilation debriefing, educational debriefing or no debriefing (control) and followed up at 2 weeks, 6 weeks and 6 months.

Results Psychiatric symptoms decreased in all three groups over time, without significantdifferences between the groups in symptoms of PTSD (P=0.33). Participants in the emotional debriefing group with high baseline hyperarousal score had significantly more PTSD symptoms at 6 weeks than control participants (P=0.005).

Conclusions Our study did not provide evidence for the usefulness of individual psychological debriefing in reducing symptoms of PTSD, anxiety and depression after psychological trauma.

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