A systematic review of randomized trials of mind‐body interventions for PTSD

• Published in: Journal of clinical psychology 2018-09, Vol.74 (9), p.1485-1508
• Main Authors: Niles, Barbara L., Mori, DeAnna L., Polizzi, Craig, Pless Kaiser, Anica, Weinstein, Elizabeth S., Gershkovich, Marina, Wang, Chenchen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Female; Humans; Male; Meditation; Middle Aged; Mind body relationship; Mindfulness; mind‐body; Post traumatic stress disorder; Psychotherapy - methods; PTSD; randomized controlled trial; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - therapy; Systematic review; Yoga
• ISSN: 0021-9762; 1097-4679
• DOI: 10.1002/jclp.22634

Objective To systematically review outcomes from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of mind–body treatments for PTSD. Methods Inclusion criteria based on guidelines for assessing risk of bias were used to evaluate articles identified through electronic literature searches. Results Twenty‐two RCTs met inclusion standards. In most of the nine mindfulness and six yoga studies, significant between‐group effects were found indicating moderate to large effect size advantages for these treatments. In all seven relaxation RCT's, relaxation was used as a control condition and five studies reported significant between‐group differences on relevant PTSD outcomes in favor of the target treatments. However, there were large within‐group symptom improvements in the relaxation condition for the majority of studies. Conclusions Although many studies are limited by methodologic weaknesses, recent studies have increased rigor and, in aggregate, the results for mindfulness, yoga, and relaxation are promising. Recommendations for design of future mind–body trials are offered.