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Anke Ehlers, PhD; David M. Clark, DPhil; Ann Hackmann, MA; Freda McManus, DClin Psych; Melanie Fennell, DPhil; Claudia Herbert, DClin Psych; Richard Mayou, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2003;60:1024-1032.

Background  It is unclear what psychological help should be offered in the aftermath of traumatic events. Similarly, there is a lack of clarity about the best way of identifying people who are unlikely to recover from early posttraumatic symptoms without intervention.

Objective  To determine whether cognitive therapy or a self-help booklet given in the initial months after a traumatic event is more effective in preventing chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than repeated assessments.

Design  Randomized controlled trial.

Patients  Motor vehicle accident survivors (n = 97) who had PTSD in the initial months after the accident and met symptom criteria that had predicted persistent PTSD in a large naturalistic prospective study of a comparable population.

Setting  Patients were recruited from attendees at local accident and emergency departments.

Interventions  Patients completed a 3-week self-monitoring phase. Those who did not recover with self-monitoring (n = 85) were randomly assigned to receive cognitive therapy (n = 28), a self-help booklet based on principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (n = 28), or repeated assessments (n = 29).

Main Outcome Measures  Symptoms of PTSD as assessed by self-report and independent assessors unaware of the patient's allocation. Main assessments were at 3 months (posttreatment, n = 80) and 9 months (follow-up, n = 79).

Results  Twelve percent (n = 12) of patients recovered with self-monitoring. Cognitive therapy was more effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and disability than the self-help booklet or repeated assessments. At follow-up, fewer cognitive therapy patients (3 [11%]) had PTSD compared with those receiving the self-help booklet (17 [61%]; odds ratio, 12.9; 95% confidence interval, 3.1-53.1) or repeated assessments (16 [55%]; odds ratio, 10.3; 95% confidence interval, 2.5-41.7). There was no indication that the self-help booklet was superior to repeated assessments. On 2 measures, high end-state functioning at follow-up and request for treatment, the outcome for the self-help group was worse than for the repeated assessments group.

Conclusions  Cognitive therapy is an effective intervention for recent-onset PTSD. A self-help booklet was not effective. The combination of an elevated initial symptom score and failure to improve with self-monitoring was effective in identifying a group of patients with early PTSD symptoms who were unlikely to recover without intervention.

From the Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, London (Drs Ehlers, Clark, and McManus), and Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford (Ms Hackmann and Drs Fennell, Herbert, and Mayou), England. Dr Herbert receives royalties for the self-help booklet evaluated in this study.

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