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Efficacy of Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing for Patients with Posttraumatic-Stress Disorder: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: We performed the first meta-analysis of clinical studies by investigating the effects of eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy on the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and subjective distress in PTSD patients treated during the past 2 decades. METHODS: We performed a quantitative meta-analysis on the findings of 26 randomized controlled trials of EMDR therapy for PTSD published between 1991 and 2013, which were identified through the ISI Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature electronic databases, among which 22, 20, 16, and 11 of the studies assessed the effects of EMDR on the symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and subjective distress, respectively, as the primary clinical outcome. RESULTS: The meta-analysis revealed that the EMDR treatments significantly reduced the symptoms of PTSD (g = -0.662; 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.887 to -0.436), depression (g = -0.643; 95% CI: -0.864 to -0.422), anxiety (g = -0.640; 95% CI: -0.890 to -0.390), and subjective distress (g = -0.956; 95% CI: -1.388 to -0.525) in PTSD patients. CONCLUSION: This study confirmed that EMDR therapy significantly reduces the symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and subjective distress in PTSD patients. The subgroup analysis indicated that a treatment duration of more than 60 min per session was a major contributing factor in the amelioration of anxiety and depression, and that a therapist with experience in conducting PTSD group therapy was a major contributing factor in the reduction of PTSD symptoms.
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“Additionally, multiple studies have established EMDR as an efficacious therapeutic approach for PTSD.”
From Clinical Efficacy of Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Analysis. (2024) · cites this paper as [71]
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“75%, 50%, 25%, and 0% indicating high, moderate, low, and no heterogeneity, respectively [24].”
Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test
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“The ORs reported in the selected RCTs were subjected to Egger’s test [21], which uses linear regression on a natural logarithmic scale to assess funnel plot asymmetry, with the level of significance set at p,0.”
MethodA Coefficient of Agreement for Nominal Scales
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“These findings are generally consistent with those of previous studies [29,36], which have reported that patients exhibited greater reductions in the symptoms of depression following cognitive therapy when treated by a therapist experienced in group therapy, compared with those treated by therapists without group-ther…”
ResultMeta‐Analysis of Psychosocial Interventions for Caregivers of People with Dementia
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Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): A meta-analysis.
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MethodResultInfluentialEye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): A meta-analysis.
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“Thirteen studies [6,9,14,15,16,25,26,30,32,34,35,41,42] involved the use of blinded outcome assessors, whereas 13 studies [5,7,8,10,12,13,27,28,31,37, 38,39,40] did not report blinding.”
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Chemtob, C. M., Nakashima, J., & Carlson, J. G. (2002) · Journal of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1002/jclp.1131 · Cited by 301 · cited 1×
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BackgroundEye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Shapiro, F., & Solomon, R. M. (2010) · The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology · doi:10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0337 · Cited by 272
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“[4] revealed that EMDR therapy significantly reduced the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children, with a Cohen’s d of 0.”
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Treatment of PTSD: Stress inoculation training with prolonged exposure compared to EMDR
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A comparison of CBT and EMDR for sexually‐abused Iranian girls
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“Two studies [5,9] reported allocation concealment by an independent third party.”
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“Thirteen studies [6,9,14,15,16,25,26,30,32,34,35,41,42] involved the use of blinded outcome assessors, whereas 13 studies [5,7,8,10,12,13,27,28,31,37, 38,39,40] did not report blinding.”
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Controlled study of treatment of PTSD using EMDR in an HMO setting.
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“72 [8,10–16].”
BackgroundEye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Shapiro, F., & Maxfield, L. (2002) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b0-12-343010-0/00093-3 · Cited by 169
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“Thirteen studies [6,9,14,15,16,25,26,30,32,34,35,41,42] involved the use of blinded outcome assessors, whereas 13 studies [5,7,8,10,12,13,27,28,31,37, 38,39,40] did not report blinding.”
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“Previous studies on EMDR therapy involving the use of interventions ranging from 50 to 120 min in duration have reported reduced PTSD symptoms, but the levels of improvement were inconsistent [12,13,16,30,34,35], suggesting that a potential moderator influenced the effects of EMDR therapy.”
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Post-traumatic stress disorder
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Flagged first, then by citations
1 of the 44 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Research works printed but not linked: 2
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Exposure therapy for PTSD: A meta-analysis
McLean, C. P., Levy, H. C., Miller, M. L., & Tolin, D. F. (2022) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2021.102115 · Cited by 273
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“Since the original observation of Shapiro, over 300 studies have examined the clinical application of EMDR and several meta-analyses have shown higher or similar efficacy in PTSD compared to pharmacological or other psychological interventions (Born et al., 2006; Bisson et al., 2007, 2013; Chen et al., 2014).”
BackgroundEMDR beyond PTSD: A Systematic Literature Review
Valiente-Gómez, A., Moreno-Alcázar, A., Treen, D., Cedrón, C., Colom, F., Pérez, V., & Amann, B. (2017) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01668 · Cited by 154
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Metadata
- Authors
- Chen, Y.-R., Hung, K.-W., Tsai, J.-C., Chu, H., Chung, M.-H., Chen, S.-R., Liao, Y.-M., Ou, K.-L., Chang, Y.-C., & Chou, K.-R.
- Affiliations
- Taoyuan Armed Forces General Hospital (TW)
- Yuan's General Hospital (TW)
- Taipei Medical University-Shuang Ho Hospital (TW)
- Tri-Service General Hospital (TW)
- Taipei Medical University (TW)
- Tamkang University (TW)
- Taipei Medical University Hospital (TW)
- Corresponding author
- Chou, Kuei-Ru
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2014-08-07
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- e103676
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4125321
- OpenAlex
- W2069381491
- Cited by
- 222
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 6
- FWCI
- 1.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Taipei Medical University Repository (submittedVersion)
- Tamkang University Institutional Repository (TKUIR) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Science Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research
- Keywords
- EMDR, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, subjective distress, treatment duration, therapist experience, group therapy, psychotherapy efficacy
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Humans, Middle Aged, Regression Analysis, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Treatment Outcome, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing
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