A group randomized trial of critical incident stress debriefing provided to U.S. peacekeepers

Abstract

In a group randomized trial of critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) with platoons of 952 peacekeepers, CISD was compared with a stress management class (SMC) and survey-only (SO) condition. Multilevel growth curve modeling found that CISD did not differentially hasten recovery compared to the other two conditions. For those soldiers reporting the highest degree of exposure to mission stressors, CISD was minimally associated with lower reports of posttraumatic stress and aggression (vs. SMC), higher perceived organizational support (vs. SO), and more alcohol problems than SMC and SO. Soldiers reported that they liked CISD more than the SMC, and CISD did not cause undue distress.

Short-Form Mindfulness Training Protects Against Working Memory Degradation over High-Demand Intervals

“…This was due to the military requirement that organic unit structure be maintained during testing and course session scheduling. This requirement represents a typical assignment strategy for experiments involving military participants (Adler et al 2008;Jha et al 2015;Johnson et al 2014). Both MT groups were made up of two partial platoons with 20 soldiers each.…”

Law enforcement preferences for PTSD treatment and crisis management alternatives

“…The goal of CISD is to prevent the emergence of full-blown psychopathology; it typically is based in group work run with high-risk occupational groups, although individual debriefing sessions may be used (Adler et al, 2008;Devilly, Gist, & Cotton, 2006). Use of CISD is widespread (Devilly et al;Gist & Devilly, 2002) and CISD is popular with the law enforcement community (Miller, 2006).…”

“…Much of the supporting research suffers major methodological problems (Devilly et al), and a recent meta-analysis found that CISD did not improve outcome following a traumatic event (van Emmerik, Kamphuis, Hulsbosch, & Emmelkamp, 2002). Finally, one of the most recent well controlled studies of CISD among US peacekeepers did not support its use (Adler et al, 2008). Secondary to the problematic research base, researchers, practitioners, consensus panels, and evidence-based guidelines have cautioned that use of CISD be limited or viewed as contraindicated (Gist & Devilly, 2002).…”

The Air Force Deployment Transition Center: Assessment of Program Structure, Process, and Outcomes

“…Most are structured as either a military debriefing session, psychoeducation about potential mental health symptoms with instruction about where to seek help, or both. The majority of these programs showed no effect on future PTSD symptoms (Mulligan et al, 2011a); however, two studies by Adler and colleagues showed a positive effect of psychoeducation and military debriefing among U.S. soldiers who had high levels of combat exposure (Adler et al, 2008(Adler et al, , 2009). General psychiatric morbidity was assessed in four of the seven studies, and two showed a positive effect of the intervention during at least one follow-up time point (Mulligan et al, 2011a).…”

“…Results from a nonrandomized trial showed that, relative to a comparison group, alcohol misuse was lower among those who received psychological debriefing one year following the intervention (but not at three or six months post-intervention; Deahl et al, 2000). The authors of a cluster-randomized trial of psychological debriefing reported that peacekeepers who received a debriefing intervention had higher rates of alcohol misuse three to four months after the intervention relative to a comparison group, who received a stress education program (Adler et al, 2008).…”