engleski

Fluoxetine in therapy of persons with PTSD

During the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina a majority of the population experienced very intensive and often multiple psychological trauma, sometimes with physical maltreatment and harassment. At a certain period there were 600.000 displaced persons and refugees in Croatia. A large number of them were posttraumatic persons, expressing different psychological symptoms, and some 10-36% suffered from PTSD ; diagnosed by the DSM III R. Although we respected the implementation of the cognitive- behavioral therapy, the therapeutic effects were slow and insufficient, and we were forced to use psychopharmacotherapy. According to the published literature, very few data exist on the efficiency of psychopharmacotherapy of PTSD. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency fluoxetine treatment in patients with PTSD. The study included a group of 74 displaced persons (age: 18-67, be sexes, various level of education) with acute PTSD. The patients were divided into two groups: patients treated wi cognitive- behavioral therapy and patients treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy and with 40-80 mg/d fluoxetine. The groups were formed from list of persons, and all with even numbers received psychopharmacotht apeutic treatment and patients with odd numbers received only cognitive- behavioral treatment. At the beginning each patient went through a non-structured interview diagnostic interview, HAMAS and HAMDS. The study lasted for 10 weeks and the patients were tested on the 0, 14, 28, 42, 56, 70 day of the treatment. On each follow-up term, except th 0 day, the above mentioned methods as well as the side effect scale we used. The condition of fluoxetine treated patients significantly improved according to HAMDS and HAMAS, and very few side effects occurred. By comparing the two groups of patients, significantly better results were achieved in fluoxetine treated patients.

fluoxetine; PTSD

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