ASPECTS: Acute Stress Programme for Children and Teenagers

INTERVENTION: Participants will enter the trial at 2 ‐ 3 months after a traumatic event. They will either be allocated to active treatment or a wait list. The experimental intervention will be a course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This will last for up to 10 sessions, and be delivered over a 10 week period. This treatment would be based largely on the treatment package devised for a previous trial of CBT for chronic PTSD in children and adolescents. Each session will last 60 ‐ 90 minutes. The control intervention will be a 10 week wait list group, with the same pre‐ and post‐intervention assessments as the experimental intervention. Post‐treatment assessments will be conducted by doctoral‐level psychologists blind to treatment allocation. Participants who still have PTSD at the end of the wait list period will be offered the CBT treatment. Total duration of treatment for CBT will be 10 ‐ 15 hours, over 10 weekly sessions; follow ups will take place at 6 months and 12 months post‐treatment. CONDITION: Post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ; Mental and Behavioural Disorders ; Reaction to severe stress, and adjustment disorders PRIMARY OUTCOME: 1. PTSD status, as assessed using the Children's PTSD Inventory (CPTSDI); 2. Child PTSD Symptom Scale (CPSS); ; All of the primary and secondary outcome measures will be completed at the pre‐ and post‐treatment assessments; all primary and secondary measures will be completed at the 6‐ and 12‐month follow ups, with the exception of the Clinician's Global Assessment Scale. SECONDARY OUTCOME: 1. Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ); 2. Spence Children?s Anxiety Scale (SCAS); 3. Children?s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS); ; All of the primary and secondary outcome measures will be completed at the pre‐ and post‐treatment assessments; all primary and secondary measures will be completed at the 6‐ and 12‐month follow ups, with the exception of the Clinician's Global Assessment Scale. INCLUSION CRITERIA: 1. Exposure to a road traffic accident, an assault, or another discrete traumatic stressor (i.e. any event that involve the threat of death, severe injury, or threat to bodily integrity, or witnessing such an event) 2. Aged 8 ‐ 17 years, either sex 3. Meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM‐IV) diagnostic criteria for PTSD, or the alternative algorthim for children and young people proposed by Scheeringa and colleagues (Scheeringa, Wright, Hunt, & Zeanah, 2006), assessed by a structured interview 4. The index trauma occurred 2 ‐ 3 months prior to trial entry