Imagery Rehearsal Therapy was originally developed for persons experiencing nightmares which were not associated with a traumatic response (Pagel et al., 2014; Krakow & Zadra, 2006). Yet, as we saw earlier, approximately 72% of persons with PTSD experience nightmares thus researchers began to examine the possibility of IRT for persons with trauma-related nightmares. In a randomized control study, Krakow et al. (2001) examined the effectiveness of IRT against a wait-list control group for 168 women with chronic nightmares and PTSD resulting from sexual assault.
Of the 168 women studied, the majority of the participants were Non-Hispanic White, held lower than college education, and were no living with a partner during the study. From the Krakow et al. (2001) study, participants of the treatment group showed a large decrease in nightmares …show more content…
Seda et al. (2015) did not report demographic information outside gender, presumable due to the lack of demographic information within queried studies. The combinations of treatment included: IRT alone vs. Prazosin, IRT alone vs. IRT + CBTI, IRT alone vs. IRT + other intervention, IRT + CBTI vs. Prazosin, IRT + CBTI vs. IRT + other intervention, and IRT + other intervention vs. Prazosin (Lu et al., 2015). From the 15 studies, IRT combined with CBTI showed the best outcomes on post-traumatic stress symptoms and insomnia when compared to all other interventions (Lu et al., 2015) It should be noted that none of the interventions showed superiority against the other in relation to nightmare frequency which indicates that any of the treatment outcomes indicated would be helpful for treating trauma-related nightmares (Lu et al.,
Of the 168 women studied, the majority of the participants were Non-Hispanic White, held lower than college education, and were no living with a partner during the study. From the Krakow et al. (2001) study, participants of the treatment group showed a large decrease in nightmares …show more content…
Seda et al. (2015) did not report demographic information outside gender, presumable due to the lack of demographic information within queried studies. The combinations of treatment included: IRT alone vs. Prazosin, IRT alone vs. IRT + CBTI, IRT alone vs. IRT + other intervention, IRT + CBTI vs. Prazosin, IRT + CBTI vs. IRT + other intervention, and IRT + other intervention vs. Prazosin (Lu et al., 2015). From the 15 studies, IRT combined with CBTI showed the best outcomes on post-traumatic stress symptoms and insomnia when compared to all other interventions (Lu et al., 2015) It should be noted that none of the interventions showed superiority against the other in relation to nightmare frequency which indicates that any of the treatment outcomes indicated would be helpful for treating trauma-related nightmares (Lu et al.,