Effectiveness of Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) on the Improvement of Post-Traumatic Symptoms, Interpersonal Reactivity and Negative Emotions in Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A Single-Subject Research Study

Exposure therapy is a narrative therapeutic approach developed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. The aim of this study was the effectiveness of narrative exposure therapy on the improvement of post-traumatic symptoms, interpersonal reactivity and negative emotions in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. The method of this research is the study of a single subject of type AB. The statistical population of this study consists of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder living in Tehran who were hospitalized in Sadr Psychiatric Hospital in Tehran until 2021. For this purpose, a list of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder was prepared. Then, from this statistical population, 4 people were randomly selected and 3 people were randomly assigned to the experimental group and 1 person as a control. The intervention was performed 2 times a week for 8 sessions of 45 minutes. In this study, tools such as Mississippi Questionnaire, DASS-21 Negative Emotions Scale and Interpersonal Response Scale were used. Graph analysis, clinical improvement percentage and stable change index were used to analyze the data. The percentage of significant clinical improvement for all three subjects is over 50% and the sustained change index in all three subjects is more than 1.96, which indicates that narrative exposure therapy has a positive effect on post-traumatic symptoms, interpersonal reactivity and negative emotions. Findings showed that there is a significant difference between the estimated mean post-test scores of post-traumatic symptoms, interpersonal reactivity and negative emotions between the experimental and control groups.