Bichescu 2007.
Methods | Randomised controlled trial | |
Participants | 18 former political detainees (in Romania) with PTSD (17 men, 1 woman) | |
Interventions | Narrative Exposure Therapy (n = 9) vs psychoeducation (n = 9) | |
Outcomes | CIDI, BDI | |
Notes | All treatment carried out by a PhD psychology student. Unclear whether adherence was measured, but supervision was provided by email. | |
Risk of bias | ||
Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
Random sequence generation (selection bias) | High risk | Quote: "Participants were assigned through a random selection procedure of participants name‐cards to one of two treatment groups: NET and PED." Comment: It is unclear how exactly this was performed. |
Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Comment: The authors do not report any methods of allocation concealment. |
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Low risk | Comment: No drop‐outs. |
Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Low risk | Comment: All specified and expected outcomes appear to have been reported. |
Other bias | High risk | Comment: Very small sample size |
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes | High risk | Comment: Participants were aware of their allocation. |
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes | Low risk | Quote: "Our intent was to perform a blinded assessment by keeping the interviewers unaware of the treatment condition and pre‐test scores of the individual patients and by instructing the patients not to inform the interviewers about their treatment. However, due to the large differences in procedures and number of sessions between the two treatment conditions, it was not possible for us to achieve complete blindness in all cases. Occasionally, a patient revealed details about his treatment that might have affected the blindness of the interviewer." |