Are There Differences Among Evidence-Based Psychotherapies for Treating Different DSM-5 PTSD Symptom Clusters? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Controlled Clinical Trials

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a heterogeneous disease defined by four Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) symptom clusters: reexperiencing, avoidance, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and hyperarousal. There are effective evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) for PTSD. However, given the variety of PTSD clinical presentations, we conducted the first meta-analysis investigating whether DSM-5 PTSD symptom clusters show different responses to EBPs.

We systematically reviewed the literature for controlled clinical trials in five databases, performed a meta-analysis, and evaluated the methodological quality of the studies. We screened 633 studies and included seven. Three showed high risk, two showed some concerns, and one showed a low risk of bias. The symptom clusters do not seem to respond differently to EBPs (SMD cluster B: −0.40; 95% confidence interval [CI], −0.87 to 0.08; cluster C: −0.49; 95% CI, −0.90 to −0.08; cluster D: −0.44; 95% CI, −0.94 to 0.05; cluster E: −0.54; 95% CI, −1.07 to −0.0), even when analyzed by the therapeutic focuses. The findings dovetail nicely with the network theory of PTSD symptom, as although it is a heterogeneous disorder, the EBPs seem to promote a kind of cascade of symptom improvement.