Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD)is a highly prevalent
condition, yet available treatments demonstrate only modest efficacy. Exposure
therapies, considered by many to be the “gold-standard” therapy for PTSD, are
poorly tolerated by many patients and show high attrition. We evaluated
interpersonaltherapy,in a group format, adapted to PTSD (IPT-G PTSD), as
an adjunctive treatmentfor patients who failed to respond to conventional
psychopharmacologicaltreatment.
Methods: Research participants included 40
patients who soughttreatmentthrough a program on violence in the department
of psychiatry of Federal University ofSao Paulo (UNIFESP). They had received
conventional psychopharmacologicaltreatmentfor atleast12 weeks and failed
to have an adequate clinicalresponse. After signing an informed consent,
approved earlier by the UNIFESP Ethics Review Board,they received a semi-
structured diagnostic interview (SCID-I), administered by a trained mental
health worker,to confirm the presence of a PTSD diagnosis according to
DSM-IVcriteria. Otherinstruments were administered, and patients completed
out self-reportinstruments at baseline, and endpointto evaluate clinical
outcomes.
Results: Thirty-three patients completed the trial, but all had atleast
one second outcome evaluation. There were significantimprovements on all
measures, with large effect sizes.
Conclusions:IPT-G PTSD was effective not
only in decreasing symptoms of PTSD, but also in decreasing symptoms
of anxiety and depression.Itled to significantimprovements in social
adjustment and quality oflife.It was welltolerated and there were few
dropouts. Ourresults are very preliminary;they need further confirmation
through randomized controlled clinicaltrials. Depression and Anxiety
27:72-77. 2010.