Al-Hadethe, A., et al. · 2015
EFT (n=20) vs no-treatment (n=20): g=1.38 (95% CI 0.69–2.06, p<0.001). EFT (n=20) vs NET (n=19): g=0.79 (95% CI 0.15–1.43, p=0.02), favoring EFT over the active comparator in this trial. Gains were reported as durable to 12-month follow-up, while NET's effects were less stable, per the Church et al. 2022 review (not independently verified here).
Picture a teenage boy in a conflict-affected city who has witnessed violence most adults never will, needing trauma care in a system stretched by ongoing crisis. If tapping continues to hold its own against narrative exposure therapy, an established trauma treatment, in settings like this, its practical edge is that it can be taught quickly and then used by the young person on their own, without repeat clinician sessions — a genuinely comparable but far easier way to reach large numbers of war-affected youth quickly.
EFT outperforming an established trauma therapy (Narrative Exposure Therapy) and holding at 12 months in war-affected youth is a genuinely interesting result, and the next step is figuring out what accounts for that greater durability — objective markers of chronic stress in conflict-exposed youth, like cortisol, heart-rate variability, or sleep actigraphy, could help. Testing whether community or lay-provider delivery models can extend this reach across other conflict-affected regions would also matter, given how scarce trauma specialists are in exactly these settings.
| Design | Randomized trial |
|---|---|
| Participants | 59 people |
| Population | male students, ages 16-19, Baghdad |
| Comparison group | no-treatment control and Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET, active comparator) |
| Effect size | Hedges' g (EFT vs no-treatment) = 1.38 (95% CI 0.69–2.06) — on PTSD symptoms |
| Outcome measures | PTSD symptom scale (not specified) |
| Journal | Original publication venue not confirmed (indexed via Stapleton 2023 Tables 1/3/4) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Country | Iraq |
| Language | English |
| Method | EFT / tapping |
| Publication type | Study / trial |
| Verification | ✓ Confirmed against the primary source |
Al-Hadethe, A., & et al. (2015). EFT vs Narrative Exposure Therapy vs no-treatment control in Iraqi male students (as tabulated in Stapleton 2023). https://doi.org/10.4172/2324-8947.1000145
This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping. Explore more studies on PTSD & Trauma
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