A recent study found adolescents suffering from PTSD as a result of sexual abuse had a better chance of recovery if they participated in prolonged exposure therapy, which asks patients to "revisit" their traumatic experience.
"We hypothesized that prolonged exposure therapy could fill this gap and were eager to test its ability to provide benefit for adolescent patients," exposure therapy creator Edna Foa PhD, professor of Clinical Psychology in the department of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a U Penn news release.
In the past researchers have worried that using exposure therapy to treat adolescents who have not had the chance to develop certain coping methods could have negatives results.
"Adolescence is often a time when children begin to test limits and are in and out of situations, both good and bad - situations that often determine the path their lives take into adulthood," the news release reported.
The recent six-year-study compared the success rates of adolescent-geared prolonged exposure therapy with supportive counseling. The team looked at 61 girls between the ages of 13 and 18 who were suffering from "abuse-related PTSD."
Half of the participants received supportive therapy while the other half received exposure therapy treatments of a similar length.
The study subjects were assessed before treatment, mid-treatment, and both six and 12 months after treatment had ended.
These results were retained throughout the 12-month follow-up.
The team found the patients who received prolonged exposure therapy had a "greater decline in PTSD and depression symptom severity, and improvement in overall functioning," the news release reported.
"Another key finding of this research was that prolonged therapy can be administered in a community setting by professionals with no prior training in evidence-based treatments and can have a positive impact on this population," Foa said.
