Evaluación de la eficacia de un tratamiento individual para mujeres víctimas de violencia de pareja con trastorno de estrés postraumático

Abstract

The aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief and specific treatment of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PSD) in women victims of domestic violence. The participants were 20 battered women, all of whom fulfilled the PSD diagnosis (DSM-IV-TR). The treatment, individually applied, consists of eight sessions and it includes psycho-education, training for the activation control, cognitive therapy and exposure therapy. A quasi-experimental design of repeated measures was used (pre-treatment, post-treatment and 6 month follow-up). The results at the post-treatment stage showed a significant improvement for the PSD symptoms (80% of the women no longer fulfilled the PSD criteria). Also, they presented significant improvements in other symptoms: depression, self-esteem, social adaptation problems, and posttraumatic beliefs. At the six month follow-up these improvements remained constant, and even increased.