The DECRYPT trial of cognitive therapy for multiple-trauma PTSD in children and adolescents: how children do (and do not) recover.

Speaker: Professor Richard Meiser-Stedman, Kings College London
Series: Centre for Child, Adolescent & Family Research Seminar Series
Admission (organiser's words): not a waiting list.
Also open online: the joining details are on the talk's page.

Abstract

The DECRYPT randomised controlled trial considered whether a trauma-focused psychotherapy, namely cognitive therapy for PTSD (CT-PTSD) was superior to treatment as usual (TAU) in children and adolescents with PTSD following multiple trauma exposure.

The trial was highly pragmatic, with participants being recruited from UK CAMHS and therapy delivered by front-line NHS staff. TAU was psychotherapy, i.e. not a waiting list.

The primary outcome was post-traumatic stress as assessed using by the CRIES-8 at post-treatment. A wide range of comorbid psychopathology was assessed at baseline and at follow up. Between 2017 and 2021 120 youth were recruited into the trial. A main effect was not detected at post-treatment, but was present at 11 months post-randomisation.

In this talk I will outline the main results, but consider other key questions relating to the trial findings - when children did recover, what changed? Were mediators of treatment response detectable? Are there factors, relating to the child's trauma history, mental health, coping, appraisals, or family context that limited or promoted recovery?

Speaker bio

Richard Meiser-Stedman is Professor in Child Clinical Psychology at King’s College London, in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN). His primary research interest is PTSD in children and adolescents.

He completed his PhD and trained as a clinical psychologist at the IoPPN. Between these periods of study he was a Peggy Pollak Fellow in Developmental Psychiatry, also at the IoPPN. From 2009-2014 he was an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellow at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. While there he led the ASPECTS study, looking at the early natural course of traumatic stress reactions, and an early treatment for PTSD in children and adolescents.

In 2014 he moved to the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Therapies at the University of East Anglia. From 2016 to 2020 he was an NIHR Career Development Fellow, through which he led the DECRYPT trial; this trial looked at cognitive therapy as a treatment for PTSD in NHS child and adolescent mental health services. He returned to the IoPPN in 2025.

In 2008 he was awarded the Chaim and Bela Danieli Young Professional Award by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS). In 2018 he received the May Davidson Award from the BPS’s Division of Clinical Psychology, for his contribution to the development of clinical psychology within 10 years of qualification. He was made a Fellow of the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy in 2023.

How to attend

Members of the University may attend in-person at the Old Cavendish Lab, Free School Lane (enter opposite Student Services).

The talk will also be streamed online for those unable to be there in person, and for those external to the University: