Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD)

Complex PTSD (CPTSD) is a new diagnosis for which no established gold-standard treatment(s) yet exists. In this trial, three psychotherapies, Prolonged Exposure (PE), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Enhanced Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation (ESTAIR), are compared in a multisite trial. Methods: The study is a single-blinded, pragmatic, non-inferiority, multi-center randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing ESTAIR, EMDR vs PE for CPTSD, each delivered as 18 weekly individual sessions. In total, 315 patients will be recruited from three outpatient clinics in the Capital Region of Denmark and randomized to one of the three intervention arms. The primary outcome is patient-rated CPTSD symptoms assessed with the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ); secondary outcomes include clinician-rated CPTSD symptoms assessed with the International Trauma interview (ITI), as well as dissociation, quality of life, attachment, interpersonal problems, and emotion regulation. Assessments are conducted before and after therapy (18 weekly sessions) treatment and at 6-month follow-up. Weekly patient- and clinician-rated outcomes are collected at every treatment session. Outcome assessors, blind to treatment allocation, will perform the observer-based symptom ratings, while fidelity assessors will monitor manual adherence.

This study aims to characterize emotional dysregulation in complex post-traumatic stress disorder (cPTSD) and to determine the extent to which it can promote the distinction with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As emotional dysregulation is a dynamic process whose phenomenological manifestations are labile, associated with physiological modifications and modulated by cognitive processing, a multiple methodology associating measurements in a real-life ecological context with measurements performed in the hospital will be preferred. Overall, this study proposes to capture, for the first time, the clinical manifestations associated with cPTSD from the perspective of emotional dysregulation and its underlying processes

As far as it is known, there is no longitudinal study in Turkey investigating the follow-up and treatment of children and adolescents exposed to trauma. This study is planned to reassess children and adolescents with trauma exposure who were evaluated in Istanbul Faculty of Medicine Child Psychiatry outpatient clinic as part of a thesis study one year ago (January-April 2024) and to examine how many of them continue to meet the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), how many receive a diagnosis of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), and which factors are associated with these outcomes. In this way, it is aimed to contribute to the literature on the long-term effects of trauma exposure. Additionally, since there is no scale in our country that assesses the diagnosis of CPTSD in children, the study also aims to translate the Child and Adolescent Trauma Screen Scale - 2 (CATS-2) into Turkish and examine its psychometric properties.

The aim of this study is to assess the psychiatric evaluation of children and adolescents exposed to trauma in the outpatient clinic and to determine the prevalence of PTSD and Complex PTSD (CPTSD) diagnoses. Additionally, it aims to compare the clinical characteristics of children exposed to trauma who do not receive a PTSD diagnosis, those diagnosed with PTSD, and those diagnosed with CPTSD, as well as to examine the trauma history of their parents and the severity of their anxiety and depression. Furthermore, since there is no existing scale to assess CPTSD in children in our country, the study also aims to translate the International Trauma Questionnaire - Child and Adolescent Version into Turkish and evaluate its psychometric properties.

This study aims to characterize emotional dysregulation in complex post-traumatic stress disorder (cPTSD) and to determine the extent to which it can promote the distinction with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As emotional dysregulation is a dynamic process whose phenomenological manifestations are labile, associated with physiological modifications and modulated by cognitive processing, a multiple methodology associating measurements in a real-life ecological context with measurements performed in the hospital will be preferred. Overall, this study proposes to capture, for the first time, the clinical manifestations associated with cPTSD from the perspective of emotional dysregulation and its underlying processes