Trauma survivors’ perceptions and experiences of prolonged exposure for PTSD at a psychology clinic

South African Journal of Psychiatry

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Trauma survivors’ perceptions and experiences of prolonged exposure for PTSD at a psychology clinic
 
Creator Booysen, Duane D. Kagee, Ashraf
 
Subject Clinical psychology; mental health Low-resource community; psychotherapy; post-traumatic stress disorder; prolonged exposure; trauma.
Description Background: Several trauma-focused treatments have been developed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yet there are limited studies on how trauma survivors perceive and experience trauma-focused treatments such as prolonged exposure therapy (PE) for PTSD, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).Aim: The study aimed to explore the perceptions and experiences of trauma survivors receiving prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD and the general acceptability of PE for PTSD in a LMIC.Setting: The study was conducted at a community psychology clinic in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.Method: Using a qualitative method, seven adult trauma survivors who completed six sessions of brief PE for PTSD were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to identify relevant themes and to understand how participants perceived and experienced PE for PTSD.Results: The analysis yielded five themes, namely structure, obstacles, gender, exposure and experiences of recovery.Conclusion: The findings suggested that participants perceived and experienced PE to be generally beneficial for the treatment of PTSD. Moreover, the study suggested that PE is an acceptable trauma therapy in a contextually diverse setting such as the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Overall, considering the evidence base of PE for PTSD, this study contributed to the literature on the acceptability of PE in a South African setting.Contribution: The findings of the study are in keeping with the extant literature on how persons perceive and experience PE for PTSD. The findings of the study suggests that PE is an acceptable and beneficial trauma therapy for PTSD in a contextually diverse setting such as South Africa. It is recommended that large scale implementation studies be conducted to further investigate the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of PE in South Africa.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2023-02-27
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative research
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajpsychiatry.v29i0.1869
 
Source South African Journal of Psychiatry; Vol 29 (2023); 7 pages 2078-6786 1608-9685
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1869/2850 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1869/2851 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1869/2852 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1869/2853
 
Coverage South Africa 2019-2020 20-27 age, Female, university students
Rights Copyright (c) 2023 Duane D. Booysen, Ashraf Kagee https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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