LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences researcher has been awarded $3.3 million from the National Institute of Drug Abuse to study treatment options for treating post-traumatic stress disorder in prisoners.
Officials said the study will examine the benefits of using cognitive processing therapy (CPT) versus the more typical trauma-focused self-help for addressing PTSD. UAMS professor of psychiatry and director of the Health and the Legal System Lab Melissa Zielinski will lead the study in 10 prisons across five states.
CPT has been effective in treating other types of PTSD brought on by such events as child abuse, combat, rape and natural disasters. Zielinski has spent the last five years researching CPT and its value to those with PTSD and substance use disorders in two correction centers in Arkansas. She sees this new multistate study as a way to identify new strategies for helping to break longstanding cycles of trauma, addiction and incarceration that characterize the nation’s prisons more broadly.
Officials said 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 imprisoned for a drug-related crime.
PTSD and substance use disorders increase the risk of those formerly incarcerated being arrested repeatedly, according to Zielinski. Despite this fact, few prisons in the U.S. provide PTSD therapy for persons in custody.
“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. “But we haven’t yet done is taken that knowledge and systematically studied our evidence-based therapies for PTSD in prisons.”
The study will enroll over 600 incarcerated adults, male and female and about 100 prison staff members.
“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. “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.”