An Online CBT, Mindfulness Meditation & Yoga (CBT-MY) Intervention for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a chronic, debilitating condition, is a growing public health concern as the Canadian population has the highest PTSD prevalence worldwide (9.2%; 3.7 million people). PTSD is linked with several co-morbid mental health disorders (e.g., depression) and increased risk of chronic disease (e.g., cardiovascular disease, obesity) which presents challenges as far as the determination of appropriate treatment. Adjunctive treatment approaches for PTSD that include somatic-sensory body awareness (e.g., mindfulness, yoga) have been shown to be viable treatment options to reduce stress-related symptoms and enhance emotion regulation. Online treatment deliveries for mental health disorders demonstrate similar reductions in self-reported symptoms as face-to-face methods and emphasize accessibility, reduced costs, and enhanced appeal to certain demographic groups. A target population at risk of untreated PTSD symptoms that may benefit from an online treatment is young adults, 18-34 yrs., who have experienced trauma during pre-adult development. No known clinical trial (CT) has addressed the effectiveness of a brief (8-week) online trauma-informed yoga intervention using both self-report and objective psychophysiology measures. This study evaluates such an intervention in terms of changes in self-reported PTSD symptoms and objectively measured biomarkers of autonomic regulation via pupil dilation and heart-rate-variability (HRV) following an 8-week single-arm experimental design. It is hypothesized that results will demonstrate clinically significant reductions of: 1) PTSD total symptom severity; 2) statistically significant reductions in pupil dilation and; 3) significant increases in HRV at post-intervention. This is the first study to examine objective markers of autonomic regulation in an at-risk population using multiple novel technologies (e.g., Eye Tracking Glasses, HRV) that compare two theoretically-linked measures (e.g., HRV, Pupillometry). Comparisons of psychophysiology data with a cross-sectional convenience sample with no history of clinical PTSD or mental health conditions are made