A new meta-analysis published in Psychological Medicine finds that Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is effective in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but offers no significant advantage over other psychological treatments. The study also highlights the role of social factors, specifically employment status and gender, in shaping how individuals respond to therapy.
Despite EMDR being listed among the first-line treatments for PTSD, this individual participant data meta-analysis found no significant differences between EMDR and other therapies in reducing symptom severity, achieving treatment response, attaining remission, or lowering dropout rates. However, the researchers did find that unemployed participants receiving EMDR had higher PTSD symptom severity at post-test, and males were more likely to drop out of treatment.
The review, led by Simonne Lesley Wright of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, pooled individual-level data from eight randomized controlled trials (RCTs), including 346 adult participants with PTSD. The authors compared EMDR to a range of other evidence-based psychological treatments, such as trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT-TF), relaxation therapy, emotional freedom technique, and REM-desensitization.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first IPDMA to explore moderators of EMDR for adults with PTSD using individual participant-level data,” the authors write. “One of the strengths of the present study was the statistical power to detect statistically significant moderators compared with study-level MA and published RCTs aimed at investigating the efficacy of EMDR for adults with PTSD. This IPDMA made it possible to investigate available participant-level moderators, such as employment status and gender.”
The study challenges assumptions about the superiority of any single trauma therapy by showing that diverse psychological treatments yield similar outcomes for PTSD. It also highlights how structural factors like employment status and gender shape treatment effectiveness, underscoring the need to address social context rather than focusing solely on technique.
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