Description of psychotherapeutic interventions and control condition
| Interventions | Abbreviation | Description |
| Psychotherapeutic intervention | ||
| Trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy | TF-CBT | CBT is a combination of cognitive and behavioural techniques. It also involves additional techniques such as relaxation training, affective modulation skills and enhancement of future safety and development. TF-CBT is a CBT programme that involves a trauma focus, which is usually performed through exposure or cognitive processing of thoughts related to the trauma. |
| Non-trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy | Non-TF-CBT | Non-TF-CBT is a CBT programme that focuses on teaching skills for the reduction of anxiety. These treatments use procedures that directly target the person’s beliefs and behaviours rather than the discussions of specific traumas. |
| Cognitive therapy | CT | CT mainly uses cognitive restructuring training, which aims at examining youths’ automatic thoughts and core schemas and evaluating the accuracy and affective consequences of their views. They aim to teach youths to engage in ‘rational’ thinking about themselves, the traumatic incident and the world. |
| Behavioural therapy | BT | BT uses some form of behavioural training, especially for exposure -based therapy and narrative therapy, to help youth reduce trauma-related symptoms. BT is based on principles of habituation. |
| Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing | EMDR | EMDR aims to help a person reprocess their memories of a traumatic event. The therapy involves bringing distressing trauma-related images, beliefs and bodily sensations to mind. |
| Psychodynamic therapy | DYN | Psychodynamic psychotherapy focuses on integrating the traumatic experience into the life experience of the individual as a whole. Childhood issues are often felt to be important. |
| Play therapy | PT | PT used techniques to engage participants in recreational activities to help them cope with their problems and fears. |
| Stress management | SM | SM mainly includes some form of relaxation or biofeedback |
| Supportive therapy | ST | ST is an unstructured therapy without specific psychological techniques that it helped people to ventilate their experiences and emotions and offering empathy, for example, supportive counselling, attention control, minimal contact, active listening, common factor control, non-specific control. |
| Control conditions | ||
| Treatment as usual | TAU | TAU is often described as ‘usual care’ or ‘usual community treatment’ in trials, which may include any components of psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy for PTSD. It is not considered to be structured intervention but may have some treatment effects. |
| Waitlist | WL | WL is a control condition in which the participants receive no active treatment during the study but are informed that they can receive one after the study period is over. |
| No treatment | NT | NT is a control condition in which the participants receive no active treatment during the study and in which they do not expect to receive such after the study is over. |