Mavranezouli, I., Megnin-Viggars, O., Daly, C., Dias, S., Stockton, S., Meiser-Stedman, R. et al. · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · 2020
Individual trauma-focused CBT showed the largest, most consistent effects; results suggest a large positive effect for emotional freedom technique, but this is based on very limited evidence within the network and needs further confirmation.
This is one of the largest, most careful evidence syntheses in the child-trauma field — a network meta-analysis spanning 32 trials, over 2,260 children, and 17 different interventions, exactly the kind of rigorous, side-by-side comparison health systems use to decide what gets funded and recommended. That EFT shows a large signal even inside that crowded, carefully vetted field — while the reviewers themselves honestly flagged it as based on limited evidence — is a real foothold worth building on, not proof, but a meaningful one.
Picture a child who has lived through violence, an accident, or abuse, waiting months for care because trauma therapists are scarce. Tapping is learnable in minutes and, unlike trauma-focused therapies that require a trained clinician each session, can be practiced by the child or a parent on their own, for free, once shown how. If it holds up as a genuine option for young people with PTSD, that self-administered quality could give stretched child mental health systems something families use at home between scarce specialist appointments, and give kids in under-resourced schools or rural clinics a bridge until formal trauma-focused therapy is available.
EFT's signal here is exciting but thin compared to the deep evidence base behind trauma-focused CBT within this same network, so the clear next step is a dedicated, adequately powered pediatric EFT trial — ideally with an objective outcome measure like cortisol or heart-rate variability alongside symptom scales — to give it the same evidentiary weight. Testing EFT head-to-head against TF-CBT, and whether parents can deliver tapping at home to extend gains between scarce specialist visits, would also move this from a promising signal to a real answer.
| Design | Meta-analysis |
|---|---|
| Participants | 2260 people |
| Population | children and young people with PTSD across 32 trials of 17 interventions |
| Comparison group | waitlist and other active interventions in a network meta-analysis |
| Outcome measures | PTSD symptom change scores, remission |
| Journal | Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry |
| Year | 2020 |
| Language | English |
| Method | EFT / tapping |
| Publication type | Review or meta-analysis |
| Verification | ✓ Confirmed against the primary source |
Mavranezouli, I., Megnin-Viggars, O., Daly, C., Dias, S., Stockton, S., Meiser-Stedman, R., Trickey, D., & Pilling, S. (2020). Research Review: Psychological and psychosocial treatments for children and young people with post-traumatic stress disorder: a network meta-analysis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13094
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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