Brief Early Psychological Intervention Following Trauma: A systematic Review of the Literature

PRESENTER: Suzanna Rose

     A systematic literature search/review was undertaken of brief early psychological
     interventions following trauma. Only 6 randomised controlled trials were found
     and none of these were of group interventions. Of the six trials two studies
     associated the intervention with a positive outcome, two demonstrated no difference
     on outcome between intervention and non-intervention groups and two showed some
     negative outcomes in the intervention group. This review suggests that early
     optimism for brief early psychological interventions including debriefing was
     misplaced and that there is an urgent need for randomised controlled trials of
     group debriefing and other early interventions.

     Key words: 
      psychological debriefing; systematic literature review;
      critical incident stress debriefing; randomised controlled trial.

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