Attention Control Treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ׂ(PTSD)
Condition: PTSD
MeSH terms: Stress Disorders, Traumatic; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The purpose of this study is to explore the efficacy of Attention Control Training for Post
      Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

      ACT was found to be effective in decreasing attention bias variability and PTSD symptoms in
      combat veterans (Badura-Brack, et al., 2015). It is now important to continue the examination
      of ACT's efficacy in additional populations of patients with PTSD. Such extension of
      treatment to other traumatic experiences raises the question of whether the threatening
      content of the training material could be personalized for each patient.
    

Detailed description: 
      The aim of this study is to explore the efficacy of Attention Control Training for Post
      Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

      ACT was found to be effective in decreasing attention bias variability and PTSD symptoms in
      combat veterans (Badura-Brack, et al., 2015). It is now important to continue the examination
      of ACT's efficacy in additional populations of patients with PTSD. Such extension of
      treatment to other traumatic experiences raises the question of whether the threatening
      content of the training material could be personalized for each patient.

      For this purpose, we will recruit participants that are diagnosed with PTSD and will be
      randomly assigned to one of three conditions: personalized ACT, non-personalized ACT, or
      control training We expect that personalized ACT will produce greater reduction in PTSD
      symptoms relative to a non-personalized ACT, and that both these conditions will be more
      effective in symptoms reduction than a control condition not designed to affect attention or
      expose patients to threat stimuli. We also expect the ACT conditions to reduce attention bias
      variability relative to the control condition.
    

Intervention name(s): Personalized Attention control training (ACT); Non-personalized Attention control training (ACT); Control training.
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): In this intervention, participants will be trained with a personalized Dot-Probe task. Each participant will perform the task with the set of words that he or she ranked as the most threatening according to a Word Ranking Task.; In this intervention, participants will be trained with the same Dot-Probe task as in the personalized condition, except that the word stimuli will be randomly fit for each participant. It should be noted that 25% out of the words in this condition will be high ranked words according to each patient's word ranking. The aim of this is to enhance similarity to a generic ACT intervention (see Badura-Brack et al., 2015), where there is some degree of exposure to what one may consider "personalized" stimuli (i.e., threat words that were randomly included by the researchers), although it is not deliberately set to idiosyncratic preferences.; In this intervention, participants will perform a computerized task, similar to the Dot-Probe task. In each trial, one neutral word will be presented at the center of the screen and participants will respond to a probe ('E' or 'f') presented following the removal of the words display. This version does not include the essential ingredients thought to reduce PTSD symptoms in the other dot-probe tasks: exposure to threat content and competition on attentional resources. Thus, this control version provides a control condition for the ACT interventions.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Factorial Assignment
Masking: Quadruple (Participant, Care Provider, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: PTSD; attention training; cognitive bias modification