2010 Summer Student Research Interns
... funded by the UMDNJ-Foundation and SHRP

Faculty Contact Information:

Project Detail

Project Title:

Cognitive-behavioral treatment of post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among Clients with Severe Mental Illnesses (Four-Year-Study, funded by NIH)

Hypothesis:  
The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate in a controlled fashion (randomized controlled trial: RCT) whether a standardized, 12-16 week cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) program for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), specifically designed for persons with severe mental illness (SMI), is effective (compared to a briefer psychoeducational program) for treating predominantly minority clients living in urban areas (New Jersey) when the program is delivered by frontline mental health clinicians. 

Description:

Over the course of the past 2.5 years, we have completed collecting data among 175 clients with severe PTSD and other mental illnesses. We have the data available and are in need of manuscript preparation using the existing data.

Specific Student Responsibilities:

The student will be responsible for the following:

1) Literate review, data analysis and manuscript preparation on trauma, PTSD screening and service use patterns among African American clients in community mental health centers, using the existing dataset. The manuscript has been drafted on this topic. We have already established a dataset among a sample of about 500 African American clients.

2) Literate review, data analysis and manuscript preparation on trauma, PTSD screening and service use patterns among Hispanic American clients in community mental health centers, using the existing dataset. The dataset has a sample size of 100 Hispanic Americans.

3) Literature review on service use patterns and clinical correlates of PTSD avoidance symptoms. In particular, we would like to examine treatment non-compliance and its association with PTSD avoidance symptoms (i.e., avoidance of stimuli related to trauma, numbing, and a sense of foreshortened future).

The student will also assist in organizing research files and enter data using SPSS if needed.

Start / end date of project:  

4/2010-10/2010, 150 hours in total