Citation

Hamblen JL, Norris FH, Pietruszkiewicz S, Gibson LE, Naturale A, Louis C. Adm. Policy Ment. Health 2009; 36(3): 206-214.

Affiliation

National Center for PTSD, VA Medical Center, 215 North Main Street, White River Junction, VT, 05009, USA, jessica.hamblen@dartmouth.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10488-009-0213-3

PMID

19365725

Abstract

Many disaster survivors suffer from postdisaster distress regardless of whether or not they meet criteria for specific psychiatric diagnoses. Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Postdisaster Distress (CBT-PD), a ten-session manualized intervention, was developed to address a range of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to disaster. Trained community-based therapists provided CBT-PD to adult survivors of Hurricane Katrina as part of InCourage, a program sponsored by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. Participants (n = 88) who were assessed at referral, pretreatment, intermediate treatment, and posttreatment showed significant and large improvements. The overall pre-post effect size was 1.4 in intention-to-treat analyses. Improvements were comparable for persons with more severe distress and persons with moderate distress at referral. Benefits were maintained at follow-up for the 66 adults who have been assessed.

Language: en