Evidence - SBC Impact
Compelling, credible, recent, direct impact data
Evidence - SBC Impact
As of March 15 2025, The Communication Initiative (The CI) platform is operating at a reduced level, with no new content being posted to the global website and registration/login functions disabled. (La Iniciativa de Comunicación, or CILA, will keep running.) While many interactive functions are no longer available, The CI platform remains open for public use, with all content accessible and searchable until the end of 2025. 

Please note that some links within our knowledge summaries may be broken due to changes in external websites. The denial of access to the USAID website has, for instance, left many links broken. We can only hope that these valuable resources will be made available again soon. In the meantime, our summaries may help you by gleaning key insights from those resources. 

A heartfelt thank you to our network for your support and the invaluable work you do.
Time to read
less than
1 minute
Print
a- a+
Published 1 year ago
Last updated 1 year ago
Read so far

Focused Psychosocial Support - Beneficial Effect on PTSD Symptoms

0 comments

Strategy researched

Focused psychosocial support interventions for children exposed to traumatic events in humanitarian settings in low-income countries (LICs)

Impact achieved

The study found small effects in standardised mean differences, or SMD (<0.3), including a reduction of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD (SMD = -0.33) and functional impairment (SMD = -0.29), as well as increases in coping (SMD = -0.22), hope (-0.29), and social support (-0.27). Meta-analyzes also found medium effects for reduction of PTSD symptoms in children aged 15-18 years (SMD = -0.43) and in non-displaced children, (SMD = -0.40), as well as small effects in children living in smaller households with fewer than 6 members (SMD = -0.27).

Country of study

LICs

Research methodology

Systematic review of 11 RCTs

Journal

The Lancet Global Health; 2018

Journal paper title and link

Focused psychosocial interventions for children in low-resource humanitarian settings: a systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis

Excerpt from Abstract

"Overall, focused psychosocial interventions are effective in reducing PTSD and functional impairment, and in increasing hope, coping, and social support."

 

Why the focus on direct impact data?

A common challenge from policy makers, funders, community members, people directly experiencing development issues, and governments is: Demonstrate your Impact. Prove that what you are doing works. The high quality, highly credible data presented on the cards below is designed to help you answer that question for your social change, behaviour change, community engagement, communication and media for development, strategy formulation, policy engagement and funding initiatives. At this link filter the research data to your specific interests and priorities

Why a playing cards design?

There is a physical pack of cards with this data (to get a copy please request through the comment form for any card). The card approach allows for easy identification and selection of relevant direct impact data in any context. For example if talking with a donor and you need to identify proof of impact say "take a look at the 7 of Hearts". Quick access can be provided to high-quality data for many areas of your work – funding, planning, policy, advocacy, community dialogue, training, partner engagement, and more. A card deck is also engaging, easy to use and share, a conversation starter, and a resource - and they are fun and different. So we kept that design for the online images as it can serve similar purposes. 

What are the criteria for inclusion?

The impact data presented meets the following high standard for inclusion criteria:

  • Positive change or trend in a priority development issue;
  • Social change or behaviour change strategy or process;
  • Randomized Control Trial or Systematic Review methodology;
  • High quality peer review journal published;
  • Numeric impact data point
  • Published since 2010.