Primary Prevention of PTSD Symptoms in Combat-Deploying Soldiers Using Attention Bias Modification: A Randomized...

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Military Medicine
• Trauma Studies

Background:

• Attentional threat avoidance is linked to higher posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) risk.
• Attention bias modification (ABM) aims to retrain attention to threats to prevent PTSD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate two ABM protocols for PTSD primary prevention in soldiers before combat deployment.
• To assess if response-time (RT)-based or eye-tracking-based ABM is more effective.

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial with 501 male soldiers.
• Compared RT-based ABM (dot-probe task) and eye-tracking ABM against a sham RT-based task.
• Measured threat attention pre/post-training and PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms 1 year postcombat.

Main Results:

• RT-based ABM significantly reduced PTSD symptom severity and prevalence compared to sham training.
• A correlation was found between training-induced threat attention and reduced PTSD symptoms in the RT-ABM group.
• Eye-tracking ABM did not effectively prevent PTSD symptoms.

Conclusions:

• RT-based ABM, implemented before combat, lowers PTSD risk, supporting its use in military resilience programs.
• Findings align with previous trials demonstrating the efficacy of RT-based ABM for PTSD prevention.