Cited by 41Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ResearchPsychotherapy Techniques and ApplicationsChild Abuse and Trauma

Imagery rescripting and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing for treatment of adults with childhood trauma-related post-traumatic stress disorder: IREM study design

Open access
Boterhoven de Haan, Katrina L., Lee, Christopher W., Fassbinder, Eva, Voncken, Marisol J., Meewisse, Mariel, Van Es, Saskia M., Menninga, Simone, Kousemaker, Margriet +1 more·2017·BMC Psychiatry

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that originates from childhood trauma experiences can develop into a chronic condition that has lasting effects on an individual's functioning and quality of life. While there are evidence-based guidelines for treating adult onset PTSD, treatments for adults with childhood trauma-related PTSD (Ch-PTSD) are varied and subject to ongoing debate. This study will test the effectiveness of two trauma-focused treatments, imagery rescripting (ImRs) and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) in participants with Ch-PTSD. Both have been found effective in treatment of adult PTSD or mixed onset PTSD and previous research indicates they are well-tolerated treatments. However, we know less about their effectiveness for treating Ch-PTSD or their underlying working mechanisms. METHODS: IREM is an international multicentre randomised controlled trial involving seven sites across Australia, Germany and the Netherlands. We aim to recruit 142 participants (minimum of n = 20 per site), who will be randomly assigned to treatment condition. Assessments will be conducted before treatment until 1-year follow-up. Assessments before and after the waitlist will assess change in time only. The primary outcome measure is change in PTSD symptom severity from pre-treatment to 8-weeks post-treatment. Secondary outcome measures include change in severity of depression, anger, trauma-related cognitions, guilt, shame, dissociation and quality of life. Underlying mechanisms of treatment will be assessed on changes in vividness, valence and encapsulated belief of a worst trauma memory. Additional sub-studies will include qualitative investigation of treatment experiences from the participant and therapists' perspective, changes in memory and the impact of treatment fidelity on outcome measures. DISCUSSION: The primary aims of this study are to compare the effectiveness of EMDR and ImRs in treating Ch-PTSD and to investigate the underlying working mechanisms of the two treatments. The large-scale international design will make a significant contribution to our understanding of how these treatments address the needs of individuals with Ch-PTSD and therefore, potentially improve their effectiveness. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12614000750684 . Registered 16 July 2014.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s12888-017-1330-2

Cites

61 of 61 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Imagery rescripting is a highly effective evidence-based stand-alone trauma processing technique for post-traumatic stress disorder and a range of other disorders.

    “ImRs is an ST technique that is a highly effective evidence-based stand-alone trauma processing technique for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a range of other disorders (1–5).”

    From Timing of imagery rescripting during schema therapy for borderline personality disorder: the LUCY trial (2023) · cites this paper as [5]

    The Background describes growing evidence that ImRs is efficacious for PTSD and reports good treatment effects for social anxiety, phobias, bulimia nervosa, and depression. The Methods describe ImRs as a treatment in its own right. However, this study is a trial design, and the paper’s more cautious account does not substantiate the claim that ImRs is already ‘highly effective’ across those disorders. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 62 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [1]World Health Organization Guidelines for the management of conditions specifically related to stress 2013 Geneva WHO 24049868
  2. [60]First M Spitzer R Gibbon M Williams J Structured Clinical interview for DSM-IV axis I disorders-patient edition (SCID-I/P, Version 2.0) 1995 New York Biometrics Research Department, New York State Psychiatric Institute

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Boterhoven de Haan, K. L., Lee, C. W., Fassbinder, E., Voncken, M. J., Meewisse, M., Van Es, S. M., Menninga, S., Kousemaker, M., & Arntz, A.
Affiliations
  • The University of Western Australia (AU)
  • University of Lübeck (DE)
  • Maastricht University (NL)
  • GGZ Noord-Holland-Noord (NL)
  • PsyQ (NL)
  • University of Amsterdam (NL)
Venue
BMC Psychiatry
Published
2017-05-04
Volume
17
Issue
1
Pages
165-165
ISSN
1471-244X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2610649989
Cited by
41
References
62
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 2
FWCI
4.40
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • BMC Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research Publications (Maastricht University) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
EMDR Research Foundation
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
Keywords
childhood trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, imagery rescripting, EMDR, trauma-focused psychotherapy, treatment effectiveness, therapeutic mechanisms, depression, dissociation, trauma-related cognitions, guilt and shame, quality of life, intervention fidelity
MeSH terms
Exposure to Violence, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Australia, Eye Movements, Female, Germany, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Netherlands, Quality of Life, Research Design, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Young Adult, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review