Edinburgh Napier University

  Although psychoeducational interventions are recommended as phase 1 interventions for complex trauma there is limited evidence on their efficacy. This pilot randomised control trial (RCT) investigated the efficacy of a pure psychoeducational intervention for complex trauma. A brief 10 session intervention was delivered to n=44 female prisoners in a compressed format to accommodate short sentence lengths and was compared to usual care (n=42). Results from an intent‐to‐treat (ITT) analysis indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the two arms across the three assessment time points (including one month post intervention) for the main outcomes (Behavioural Assessment Checklist‐Revised, β= 4.60 [95%CI, ‐1.60 to 10.88], p= .148; PTSD Checklist, β= ‐1.47 [95%CI, ‐4.30 to 1.36], p= .303). Post hoc Reliable Change analyses suggested twice the number of AD participants made progress in addressing PTSD symptoms compared to usual care (30.3% vs 17.6%, OR 2.03 [95%CI, .64 to 6.43]). Whilst further work in this area is required, initial results, overall, suggest that psychoeducational group based treatment modalities achieve only small effect sizes in comparison to usual care.