An Open Trial of Skills for Psychological Recovery for Sudden Loss Survivors

Evaluating skills for psychological recovery with gunshot injury survivors in a hospital-based early intervention program.

“…Consistent with other recent studies evaluating clinical outcomes associated with SPR (Sheerin et al, 2021;Williams, Hardt, Henschel, Jamison, et al, 2022), SPR was associated with reductions in both PTSD and depression symptoms in the current This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…In the first of these studies, improvements in PTSD, depression, and prolonged grief symptoms were reported in a clinical case series describing the use of SPR with adult sudden death loss survivors at a specialty care outpatient clinic (Williams & Rheingold, 2020). Similar improvements in PTSD, depression, and prolonged grief symptoms were reported in an open trial of SPR with 21 sudden death loss survivors, with improvements maintained at 3-month follow-up (Williams, Hardt, Henschel, Jamison, et al, 2022). Overall, these studies suggest that SPR delivered in multiple formats may help promote recovery from trauma-related mental health problems, though no research to date has evaluated SPR in trauma-exposed populations with high proportions of underresourced and racially minoritized individuals, including gunshot injury survivors.…”

“…From a program implementation standpoint, this is encouraging in that an advantage of SPR and other early interventions is that these interventions are designed to be delivered by professional and paraprofessional providers alike. It is worth mentioning, though, that in both this study and other recent studies evaluating SPR (Sheerin et al, 2021; Williams, Hardt, Henschel, Jamison, et al, 2022), the intervention was delivered by primarily White, clinical psychology doctoral students with prior training in cognitive behavioral treatments who were also receiving ongoing supervision while delivering the protocol. Additional research is needed to determine whether similar effects would be observed when SPR is delivered by providers with less formal clinical training, from a more diverse group of providers in terms of race/ethnicity, as well as providers from other disciplines where formal training in cognitive behavioral treatments may be less common.…”

“…Moreover, these findings join those of other studies in showing that SPR is associated with reductions in PTSD and depression symptoms even when different modules are used to varying degrees throughout the course of the intervention. When used with sudden loss survivors, for example, the building problem-solving skills module was used in 71% of cases whereas the managing reactions to upsetting situations module was used in only 38% of cases (Williams, Hardt, Henschel, Jamison, et al, 2022). In contrast, the managing reactions to upsetting situations module was the most frequently used module with gunshot injury survivors (59% of cases), whereas building problem-solving skills was the second most frequently used module (41% of cases).…”

Disseminating early interventions for disaster mental health response using the ECHO model

“…Outcome research on PFA and SPR is limited primarily due to the challenges of conducting research immediately following disaster exposure. Available outcome data suggests that both PFA (Despeaux et al, 2019; Kılıç & Şimşek, 2019; McCart et al, 2020; Schafer et al, 2016) and SPR (Sheerin et al, 2021; Williams & Rheingold, 2020; Williams et al, 2022) are associated with positive psychological and functional outcomes. While more efficacy research is needed, there is perhaps a more pressing need to identify effective ways to more widely disseminate these promising, evidence‐informed approaches to supporting postdisaster recovery.…”