Psychological treatments for young children with trauma-related symptomatology:A systematic review of the evidence for 12 treatment methods

Background: Compared to intervention studies with older children and youth, effects of treatments for young children (≤12 years) with trauma-related symptomatology are understudied. Therefore, clinicians rely on their own experiences and evidence from older children when deciding on interventions and ultimately risk not choosing the most effective or appropriate, developmentally sensitive treatment for young, traumatized children.<br/>Objective: Systematically assess and review the evidence for 12 psychological treatments employed with traumatized children under the age of 12: Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), play therapy, Child-Parent Psychotherapy, Sandplay, Theraplay®, Mentalization-Based Therapy, Narrative Exposure Therapy for Children and Adolescents (KIDNET), Neuro-Affective Relational Model (NARM), Somatic Experiencing®, the Sleeping Dogs Method, Compassion-Focused Therapy. <br/>Method: Systematic literature searches for the 12 psychological treatments were conducted in six databases, including quantitative studies with pre-post designs. Data was narratively synthesized and assessed according to strength of evidence and methodological quality. <br/>Results: In total, 114 studies with 5296 children were included. No evidence was identified for the treatments KIDNET, NARM, Somatic Experiencing®, the Sleeping Dogs Method, nor Compassion-Focused Therapy. More studies were identified for structured treatments, especially of TF-CBT, compared to less manualized or novel treatments. Methodological quality varied considerably between and within study evidence levels. <br/>Conclusions: At present, TF-CBT and EMDR have been empirically examined the most and found to be supported as interventions for treating trauma-related symptoms in young children. Future research is needed to study the effects of the other types of treatments with young, traumatized children.