Professor Regehr was initially inspired to begin a Campbell review on this topic by her own clinical experience and by her work with current Social Welfare Co-Chair, Aron Shlonsky.
In this review, Professor Regehr and her team set out to examine the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions in reducing symptoms of distress and trauma for victims of sexual assault and rape.
Authors concluded that the results of their systematic review provide tentative evidence that cognitive and behavioural interventions, in particular Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure therapy, Stress Inoculation Therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing can be associated with decreased symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety in victims of rape and sexual assault. There is a need for further well-designed controlled studies which differentiate victims of sexual assault and rape from other traumatic events