Journal article
A simple cognitive task intervention to prevent intrusive memories after trauma in patients in the emergency department: a randomized controlled trial terminated due to COVID-19
- Abstract:
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Objective: This randomised controlled trial (RCT) aimed to investigate the effects of a simple cognitive task intervention on intrusive memories ("flashbacks") and associated symptoms following a traumatic event. Patients presenting to a Swedish emergency department (ED) soon after a traumatic event were randomly allocated (1:1) to the simple cognitive task intervention (memory cue + mental rotation instructions + computer game "Tetris" for at least 20 min) or control (podcast, similar time). We planned follow-ups at one-week, 1-month, and where possible, 3- and 6-months post-trauma. Anticipated enrolment was N = 148.
Results: The RCT was terminated prematurely after recruiting N = 16 participants. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented recruitment/testing in the ED because: (i) the study required face-to-face contact between participants, psychology researchers, ED staff, and patients, incurring risk of virus transmission; (ii) the host ED site received COVID-19 patients; and (iii) reduced flow of patients otherwise presenting to the ED in non-pandemic conditions (e.g. after trauma). We report on delivery of study procedures, recruitment, treatment adherence, outcome completion (primary outcome: number of intrusive memories during week 5), attrition, and limitations. The information presented and limitations may enable our group and others to learn from this terminated study.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04185155 (04-12-2019)
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.7MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1186/s13104-021-05572-1
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- BMC Research Notes More from this journal
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 176
- Publication date:
- 2021-05-10
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-04-15
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1756-0500
- Pmid:
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33971951
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1180062
- Local pid:
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pubs:1180062
- Deposit date:
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2025-04-17
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Kanstrup et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2021, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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