Effectiveness of Cognitive Processing Therapy in treating posttraumatic stress disorder in a private practice setting

Case files of ten individuals who were treated for Posttruamatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) in a private practice, anxiety disorders clinic were reviewed. Evaluation of Impact of Event Scale (IES) scores indicated the participant group as a whole improved significantly from pre- to post-treatment on both Intrusion and Avoidance subscales of the IES. Eight of the ten participants evidenced clinically significant and reliable change and could be classified as improved and recovered based on IES total score at post-treatment. Two individuals were identified as treatment non-responders on all measures. In addition, an I8-month follow-up IES was available for one participant that suggested the individual maintained treatment gains and even continued to improve after therapy was completed. Analyses of factors thought to influence treatment outcome- type of trauma and treatment compliance-indicated those individuals who experienced an auto-related precipitating trauma improved significantly with treatment while those individuals who experienced a non-auto precipitating trauma did not improve significantly. No significant correlations were found between a treatment compliance index and treatment outcome, but the direction of the relationship found between the two variables was noteworthy in that treatment compliance was associated with negative treatment outcome. A separate measure of treatment compliance, number of sessions attended, was found to be significantly related to treatment outcome, with fewer sessions being associated with positive outcome. Implications of these results.and limitations of the study are discussed and future directions for research are proposed