Psychological therapies for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents

There is evidence for the effectiveness of psychological therapies, particularly CBT, for treating PTSD in children and adolescents for up to a month following treatment. At this stage, there is no clear evidence for the effectiveness of one psychological therapy compared to others. There is also not enough evidence to conclude that children and adolescents with particular types of trauma are more or less likely to respond to psychological therapies than others.The findings of this review are limited by the potential for methodological biases, and the small number and generally small size of identified studies. In addition, there was evidence of substantial heterogeneity in some analyses which could not be explained by subgroup or sensitivity analyses.More evidence is required for the effectiveness of all psychological therapies more than one month after treatment. Much more evidence is needed to demonstrate the relative effectiveness of different psychological therapies or the effectiveness of psychological therapies compared to other treatments. More details are required in future trials in regards to the types of trauma that preceded the diagnosis of PTSD and whether the traumas are single event or ongoing. Future studies should also aim to identify the most valid and reliable measures of PTSD symptoms and ensure that all scores, total and sub-scores, are consistently reported.