The short term effectiveness of critical incident stress debriefing

The aim of the study was to evaluate the immediate impact of Critical Incident Stres
s Debriefing (CISD)
on people who had recently experienced a stressful event. Post traumatic symptoms were evaluated with
the Impact of Events Scale (IES) before CISD and again six weeks later and were compared to those of
controls and a group who had rece
ived a brief psychoeducational intervention, who were evaluated within
the same time frame. Compared with controls, significant effects for the CISD condition and a brief
psychoeducational intervention were observed on the intrusions and total scales of t
he IES. CISD is
effective in the short
-
term in reducing post
-
traumatic stress symptomatology, notably intrusive memories,
following a critical incident. However CISD is no more effective than a brief psychoeducational
intervention. CISD does not increa
se post traumatic stress symptomatology.