Key Takeaways
Extended Takeaways
- This trial enrolled a highly refractory population: women aged 18-58 years with chronic PTSD tied to an index trauma at least 12 years prior to intake and at least 3 years of prior therapy focused on PTSD, which strengthens the relevance of the findings for patients with persistent symptoms despite standard care.
- The intervention was low intensity and pragmatic—1-hour trauma-informed yoga classes once weekly for 10 weeks—yet the yoga arm showed a larger CAPS improvement than control, with a time ×— group interaction of d = −0.41.
- On the Davidson Trauma Scale, both groups improved early, but only yoga showed sustained benefit across treatment; the yoga group had a significant linear trend (d = −0.52), whereas the control group showed a significant quadratic trend (d = 0.46) and no significant linear trend (d = −0.29).
- Mood improvement alone did not explain the PTSD findings: both groups had significant decreases in BDI scores, with d = −0.60 for yoga and d = −0.39 for control, but between-group differences were not statistically significant.
- There was a signal that yoga may specifically help affect regulation, not just core PTSD symptoms: the Inventory of Altered Self-Capacities tension reduction subscale improved in the yoga group (d = −0.44) but not in control (d = 0.03), and the group ×— time interaction approached statistical significance (P = .09; d = −0.31).
- Retention was high, with only 4 people dropping out during the 10-week treatment phase and no significant difference between yoga (n = 1, 1.6%) and control (n = 3, 4.7%), suggesting trauma-informed yoga was feasible and acceptable in this population.
