UAMS Researcher Receives $3.3M to Study PTSD Therapies in Prisons

(UAMS)

A UAMS researcher has been awarded a $3.3 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study the effectiveness of two therapeutic options for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in prison populations.

Melissa Zielinski, director of the Health and the Legal System Lab at UAMS, is the principal investigator for a five-year study that will use cognitive processing therapy (CPT) to treat incarcerated adults with PTSD and substance use disorder.

CPT is a specific type of behavioral therapy that has been effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD that develop after experiencing a traumatic event like child abuse, combat or a natural disaster.

Zielinski expects that providing therapy for PTSD while people are in prison will help them have better outcomes after release, especially for those that struggle with substance misuse.

A news release from UAMS stated that roughly 5.5 million adults in the United States are either incarcerated or under correctional supervision. Approximately 85% of those individuals have an active substance use disorder or were incarcerated for a drug-related crime.

Zielinski said in the release that PTSD and substance use disorders increase the risk of those formerly incarcerated being arrested repeatedly, and that despite this fact, only a few prisons in the country provide PTSD therapy.

In the first of its kind national study, Zielinski’s team will test the effectiveness of CPT versus trauma-focused self-help and will study the implementation and costs of both interventions within 10 prisons in five states.

The study will enroll more than 600 incarcerated adults, male and female, and about 100 prison staff members.

“We’ve known for decades that people who become incarcerated have almost all experienced repeated trauma exposure, and that a much greater percentage of this population have PTSD than we see in the general community,” Zielinski said in the release. “But what we haven’t yet done is taken that knowledge and systematically studied our evidence-based therapies for PTSD in prisons. This study will look at one of the most effective and established therapies for PTSD in prisons with the goal of building knowledge on how to implement it and on its financial costs with the hope that having this information could lead to uptake by other prisons in the future.”

Zielinski has spent the past five years researching CPT’s effectiveness with PTSD and substance use disorders in two correction centers in Arkansas. The release said she believes this multi-state study is a way to identify strategies to break the cycles of “trauma, addiction and incarceration that characterize the nation’s prisons more broadly.”

“When I talk to people who work inside prisons, there is almost always immediate buy-in about the role that trauma exposure and PTSD play in people coming to prison and struggling to succeed post-release,” Zielinski said in the release. “They see it every day. This study is an opportunity to build knowledge on therapy with a real potential to disrupt that cycle, improving the health of people in prison, their families and the community.”