The measurement of functioning as an outcome in intervention studies targeting intrusive memories of trauma: a narrative review

Abstract

There has been a call for innovative, low-cost and simple treatments for people who have experienced trauma. The proposal that targeting intrusive memories could have the downstream effect of reducing other posttrauma symptoms or preventing their emergence has prompted the development of single-symptom interventions for intrusive memories, drawing on cognitive neuroscience models of memory consolidation and reconsolidation. To understand their full therapeutic impact, evaluations of the effectiveness of single-symptom interventions should include measures of broad outcomes (i.e. functioning), in addition to intrusion-related measures. This narrative review examined whether intervention studies targeting intrusive memories after real-world trauma measured functioning as an outcome, and if so, how. Twenty-five studies were included, 17 of which included a measure of functioning. Functional outcomes were not consistently measured in a rigorous or informative way. We make recommendations to address these issues and propose ways in which functioning can be effectively assessed in future work.

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