Date of Award

2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Doane, Lisa Stines

Subject Headings

Post-traumatic stress disorder -- Treatment, Psychology

Abstract

In order to provide adequate care, it is important for clinicians to be informed about the level of empirical support for various treatment approaches. The present study analyzes data culled from a survey of clinicians who work with PTSD. Respondents were presented with a range of treatments. They were then asked to rate their familiarity with and training in each treatment, their theoretical orientation, their level of experience conducting psychotherapy in general, and their experience with PTSD in particular. Finally, they were asked to categorize each of these treatments as "empirically supported⁰" or "not empirically supported," and to rate how often they used each treatment. Multivariate GLM was conducted to determine whether familiarity with ESTs, training in ESTs, theoretical orientation, level of experience, or level of experience with PTSD predicted accuracy and use of ESTs. The results indicate that experience with PTSD predicts use of ESTs, that training in ESTs predicts use of ESTs, and that familiarity with ESTs predicts both use of these treatments and accuracy in the categorization task. It may be the case that clinicians who are trained in ESTs use them more often simply because those are the interventions they have been trained to use. The reasons why clinicians who work with PTSD are more likely than their peers to use ESTs, but no more accurate in identifying them, are less clear

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