Building the framework for ongoing discovery: coding practice elements in child traumatic stress intervention studies

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Child Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Secondary data analysis offers significant opportunities in traumatic stress and psychotherapy research.
• Systematic approaches are needed to characterize intervention components for cross-study analysis.
• The Child Trauma Prevention and Treatment (CTPT) Data Archive project aims to facilitate data re-use.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a comprehensive framework for categorizing practice elements in child traumatic stress interventions.
• To enable granular description of interventions for cross-study analyses.
• To enhance the value of integrated data resources in child traumatic stress research.

Main Methods:

• Literature review.
• Expert consultation.
• Systematic refinement of intervention components.

Main Results:

• Identified 54 practice elements across five categories: child, parent/family, any participant, broader context, and process.
• The framework allows for granular description of child traumatic stress interventions.
• Demonstrated utility in characterizing diverse prevention and treatment approaches across multiple studies.

Conclusions:

• This framework is essential for enhancing integrated data resources.
• It advances evidence-based traumatic stress interventions for children and families.
• Facilitates novel analyses of specific intervention components across different models.