Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex, disabling condition prevalent in 6.1% to 9.2% of the North American population [1-4]. PTSD is associated with distressing memories of traumatic events, persistent avoidance, negative mood, and hyperarousal [5]. Severe symptoms are often comorbid with depression and chronic pain [6-8].

The hyperarousal of PTSD reflects sympathetic nervous system dominance [9-13] in contrast to sympathetic–parasympathetic states typical of regulated autonomic functioning [14]. Pupillometry assesses pupil constriction and dilation changes that reflect autonomic nervous system (ANS) alterations relevant to ANS balance–imbalance [15-21]. Another physiological marker, heart rate variability (HRV), also reflects ANS status [22], with high HRV indicative of healthy states and low HRV signaling chronic disruption and pathology [23,24]. This study used both physiological markers to assess PTSD treatment efficacy.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for PTSD is a psychotherapeutic intervention aimed at challenging dysfunctional thoughts and beliefs about the self and the world, and addressing emotional and behavioral patterns that impair social and emotional function [25,26]. Although CBT is one of the best-validated treatments for PTSD [25-31], current data suggest that certain PTSD subgroups (eg, severe symptom severity) are treatment resistant to cognitive-focused therapies [32,33]. As PTSD is associated with dysregulated bottom-up processes (eg, ANS dysregulation), mindfulness meditation (MM), with its emphasis on body awareness, has been identified as a promising adjunct to treatment. Mindfulness is defined as the nonjudgmental, moment-to-moment awareness of thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations [34-36]. The most empirically supported mindfulness-based therapies include mindfulness-based stress reduction [35,37], mindfulness-based cognitive therapy [38], acceptance and commitment therapy [39], and mindfulness-based CBT via the web [40]. Meta-analytic findings suggest that stand-alone mindfulness-based interventions have a moderate effect (Hedges g=−0.44) on PTSD symptoms, with longer intervention duration associated with greater PTSD symptom reduction [41].

MM combined with CBT involves reframing habitual cognitive distortions and dysfunctional thought patterns while learning to experience emotions and bodily sensations with nonjudgmental acceptance [38,42]. Interventions of this kind have received the most validation in populations with major depression and comorbid anxiety and are known to be better than usual care in reducing major depression relapse and anxiety symptoms [42]. MM combined with CBT has also shown promise in treating PTSD symptoms [43-45], although trauma-related thoughts or emotions that surface during meditation can trigger or retraumatize patients, disrupting treatment efficacy [46-48].

Yoga is increasingly being recognized as a complementary therapeutic modality for a wide variety of mental health conditions because of its ANS effects and stimulation of the limbic system [49]. Yoga-based integration of breath awareness with sequenced physical movements can promote autonomic regulation [46,47] and interoceptive awareness, which are especially relevant to survivors of PTSD who dissociate physically to cope with uncomfortable visceral sensations [50,51]. Interoceptive awareness is crucial for self-regulation and the integration of unprocessed aspects of trauma connected to bodily experience [51]. Therefore, yoga can further supplement cognitive therapy and MM to help restore self-regulation [47,51]. Although yoga, mindfulness, and their combined application as PTSD treatment have been investigated with proven efficacy [52], this is the first known study that has investigated the fuller combination of CBT, MM, and yoga for PTSD on both psychometric and psychophysiological outcomes.

Other promising CBT developments involve web-based applications that enable 24/7 accessibility [40]. Notably, meta-analytic findings provided evidence of web-based CBT as a clinically meaningful treatment for PTSD and comorbid depression and anxiety [53,54] with equal efficacy relative to in-person CBT [53]. Web-based CBT has the potential to be effective in the post-COVID-19 era, given the benefits of wide accessibility and scalability, and the possibility of reduced treatment costs.

This study examined the effectiveness of an 8-week intervention combining web-based CBT, mindfulness, and yoga (CBT-MY) for PTSD. Analyses assessed psychometric improvement and psychophysiological changes via pupillometric and HRV indicators of autonomic function. Our hypotheses were the following:

This study was a registered, single-arm, experimental clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03684473) approved by the York University human participants research and ethics committee.

Participants (aged 18-35 years) were full-time students enrolled at York University, Toronto, Canada, and recruited through classroom announcements, flyers, and an undergraduate research pool. Eligibility criteria included exposure to trauma and a clinical diagnosis of threshold PTSD symptoms measured by the CAPS-5 or threshold symptoms on the PTSD Checklist for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) civilian version. Exclusion criteria were (1) current trauma exposure within the past 30 days, (2) significant suicide risk, (3) substance abuse, and (4) active psychological treatment. A cross-sectional convenience sample of students (aged 18-35 years) with no prior history of diagnosed mental health disorders or treatment were recruited for PPD and HRV autonomic function comparisons, which were collected during a modified 25-minute validated computer-based protocol of rest, stress, and guided meditation (GM) [55,56].

A power calculation was conducted based on hypothesis 1 to detect a minimal clinically important difference in PTSD symptom severity, defined as a CAPS-5 symptom reduction of ≥10.4 points or a z score change of ≥0.8 SDs [57]. On the basis of Cohen [58] large effect size (d=0.80), power of 0.8, and α<.05 (correlation among factors, r=0.50), it was estimated that a minimum sample of N=15 would provide ample testing power [58,59]. We anticipated 20% attrition (n=3), and planned to over enroll (N=18) to detect pre-post, within-group differences for hypothesis 1 [59,60].

Interested participants emailed the study coordinator and were sent a prescreen survey (eg, trauma exposure, current symptoms, and suicidal ideation). Participants who met the inclusion criteria attended a 90-minute in-person meeting to further assess symptoms and provide written informed consent. Participants were screened for trauma exposure using the Life Events Checklist for DSM-5 to establish the DSM-5 Criterion A and underwent the CAPS-5 interview with a trained clinician. Participants suspended current psychological but not psychiatric treatment during the 8-week intervention period. Within 1 week of the CAPS-5 interview, participants completed demographic and psychometric questionnaires and laboratory assessment of psychophysiological variables (time point 1 [T1]; baseline [BL] measurements).

The 8-week CBT-MY intervention was initiated after the laboratory assessment, where each participant received password-protected web-based program access. The program comprised eight CBT-themed modules (eg, cognitive distortions, negative self-talk) containing (1) 56 unique daily MM exercises focused on breath awareness, progressive relaxation, and nonjudgmental body awareness; (2) eight 20-minute trauma-informed yoga videos [61]; and (3) 10 mindfulness-of-breath practices (Multimedia Appendix 1). Participants had access to the prerecorded CBT-MY content 24 hours a day between the counseling sessions. Participants met weekly for a 60-minute web-based session with a CBT counselor, who attended weekly supervision sessions with a clinical psychologist (PR). Participants were instructed to engage in 90 minutes of self-directed CBT-MY practice per week. All psychological and psychophysiological variables were reassessed at postintervention (time point 2 [T2]; postintervention measurements).

Analyses were performed using SPSS Statistics version 23.0 (IBM Corporation).

Overall, 71 adults aged 18 to 35 years were screened for eligibility from October 2018 to December 2019 (Figure 1). Of the 71 adults, 49 (69%) were excluded. The reasons for exclusion were current exposure to trauma (4/49, 8%), high suicide risk or an unstable medical condition (14/49, 29%), a CAPS-5 score <12 or no clear trauma exposure (Criterion A; 20/49, 41%), unable to be contacted (9/49, 18%), or ineligible age (3/49, 6%). On the basis of the inclusion criteria, of the 71 adults, 22 (31%) adults with PTSD provided consent and were enrolled in the study. Of the 22 participants, 2 (9%; 1/2, 50% in week 2 and 1/2, 50% in week 7) withdrew from the study, and an additional 2 (9%; 1/2, 50% in week 2 and 1/2, 50% in week 8) were lost to follow-up. We compared the HF-HRV data of participants with PTSD with the HF-HRV data of 46 participants without PTSD and pilot pupillometry data findings for 18 participants without PTSD.

The demographic characteristics of the participants with PTSD are presented in Table 1. Participants were aged 26.4 (SD 4.45) years on average, and most were female (18/22, 82%). Most reported a clinical mental health diagnosis confirmed by a clinical mental health professional (18/22, 82%). Of the 22 participants, 14 (64%) disclosed ≥2 diagnoses, and 11 (50%) reported currently taking prescription medication for a mental health condition.

Table 2 presents a summary of the clinical mental health and trauma exposure variables. Anxiety (14/22, 64%), depression (13/22, 59%), and PTSD (12/22, 55%) were the most common diagnoses. Participants reported an average of 3.5 (SD 2.89) years since the last trauma exposure, with a mean of 11.5 (SD 5.92) lifetime trauma exposures. Most participants experienced direct trauma (mean 5.14, SD 1.86), with physical assault being the most common trauma (19/22, 86%), followed by sexual assault (17/22, 77%). Most participants experienced direct childhood trauma exposure (19/22, 86%) that, on average, occurred as early as the age of 6.66 (SD 4.40) years and persisted for 9.97 (SD 4.62) years. Most childhood abuses were perpetrated by a parent (14/22, 64%), multiple family members (6/22, 27%), or a single family member (4/22, 18%).

Baseline resting PPD at T1 was significantly associated with CAPS-5 symptom severity score at postintervention (r_p=0.54; P=.20) suggesting that a higher resting PPD (increased autonomic reactivity) is associated with a higher CAPS-5 symptom severity score at postintervention. HF-HRV at T1 (P=.21) or T2 (P=.69) was not significantly correlated with the CAPS-5 or PCL-5 PTSD symptom severity scores.

Overall, 94% (17/18) of participants had a 100% attendance rate on the weekly CBT calls, with one of the participants completing 88% (7/8) of the scheduled calls. In terms of weekly self-directed practice, the time spent in GM was highest (mean 38.89 min/week, SD 28.16 min/week), followed by yoga (mean 31.94 min/week, SD 28.24 min/week), and breathing techniques (mean 9.89 min/week, SD 11.87 min/week). Overall, participants spent 11.53 (SD 22.76) min/day in self-directed mindfulness (eg, meditation, yoga, breath awareness) practice. Combining all program intervention components (eg, CBT-MY), participants spent an average of 145 (SD 40.82) minutes (approximately 3 hours) per week engaging with the intervention, which is equivalent to 20 min/day. In total, 837 (SD 228.17) minutes of program engagement were recorded across the entire intervention equating to a total of 14-hours of program participation.

PTSD impedes daily function in multiple health domains [3,94]. Although significant findings support stand-alone CBT [95], mindfulness [41], and yoga treatment for PTSD [52], a paucity of research assesses integrated web-based approaches. This study investigated the psychometrics and objective measures of pupillometry and HF-HRV before and after an 8-week CBT-MY intervention. The results demonstrated significant self-reported improvements with large effect size reductions in PTSD (CAPS-5, d=1.60; PCL-5 d=1.27), depression (d=0.83), and anxiety (d=0.99) and increases in mindfulness (d=0.88). In objective measures, there were large effect size reductions for PPD (Δmean=–0.06, SE 0.01; P=.001), which were theoretically discrepant with the nonsignificant effects for HF-HRV (P=.87).

We found a large (d=1.60), clinically significant (≥10 points) reduction in CAPS-5 total symptom severity that exceeded the meta-analytic effect sizes referenced for psychotherapy for PTSD (d=1.43 [32]), web-based trauma-focused CBT (d=1.04 [54]), and web-based PTSD psychotherapy (d=1.05 [96]). The observed improvement was larger than the pre-post PCL-5 improvements associated with therapist-guided web-based PTSD therapy (d=1.40) [97]. The results compare favorably to a study of mindfulness and yoga in an intensive 3-week program for veterans diagnosed with PTSD associated with a pre-post effect size of Cohen d=1.12 [98]. In our study, BL depression severity moderate (mean 25.78, SD 13.39) and anxiety was severe (mean 28.33, SD 8.88). Postintervention scores reflected minimal depression (mean 11.28, SD 10.65) and mild to moderate anxiety (mean 15.72, SD 7.61 [99]). These reductions in depression and anxiety found in our study were consistent with previous trials showing comorbidity changes after effective PTSD treatment [54,98,100].

Although notable symptom improvements were observed in our study, they were partial improvements. At postintervention, 33% (6/18) of participants (compared with 20/22, 91% at BL) met the CAPS-5 PTSD diagnostic criteria, reflecting a reduction of 57.6%. Only one participant (1/18, 6%) reported being symptom-free at postintervention, whereas the remaining 61% (11/18) of participants reported subsyndromal PTSD [101]. McFarlane et al [102] proposed that varied PTSD symptom trajectories (eg, subsyndromal or partial PTSD vs severe or full PTSD) impact care provision and suggested that a clinical staging treatment strategy may be helpful to determine where specific treatment modalities are most effective. Symptom reductions based on PTSD trajectory can inform future clinical efforts by differentiating the stages of recovery [102]. With improved staging of PTSD recovery, clinical efforts can be targeted toward the specified participants most likely to achieve specific improvements [102]. Thus, the symptom improvements resulting from our CBT-MY intervention suggests a particular utility for a certain PTSD trajectory, but not necessarily appropriate for the most severe PTSD symptom trajectory. As noted in our findings, participants who scored severe to extreme PTSD symptom presentation in Criterion D: negative cognition and mood symptoms (CAPS-5) were the least likely to have reduced PTSD symptoms (to a subsyndromal stage) and most likely to withdraw from the intervention. On the basis of the recommendations by McFarlane et al [102], CBT-MY appears best suited for the less severe stages of clinical PTSD progression.

Participants exhibited substantial increases in 3 mindfulness facets (FFMQ), supporting the initial hypotheses. Specifically, improvements in nonjudging (d=0.96), nonreactivity (d=0.83), and acting with awareness (d=0.64) suggest participant integration of foundational mindfulness–yoga concepts (eg, impermanence and the appraisal of distressing events) [103]. For instance, more acceptance of change may facilitate neutral judgments of transient phenomena (memories and feelings) and lesser reactivity to associated distress [103,104].

The lack of FFMQ observing and describing improvements may be explained by a plausible interaction with hyperarousal symptoms [105]. This view is supported by research suggesting that articulating and communicating emotions becomes easier when amygdala hyperactivity, a PTSD neurocorrelate, is reduced [105,106]. Combined with the nonsignificant HF-HRV finding, it is possible that improvements in FFMQ observing and describing occur at a later stage in the PTSD recovery process [13].

Another plausible explanation is the presence of severe dissociative symptoms may have limited participants’ capacities for mindful attention [107]. Virtually all participants (21/22, 95%) disclosed clinical symptoms of dissociation (eg, depersonalization). Trauma-related dissociation involves avoidance, numbing, and the compartmentalization of psychological functioning and is often expressed in victims of childhood abuse with repeated exposure [108]. In turn, survivors of childhood abuse often experience difficulties in labeling and downregulating emotions [108]. Mindfulness practices aim to counteract such dissociative processes by promoting experiential integration through nonjudgmental, present moment awareness [35,51,107-110].

We found large effect size reductions for PPD (d=0.90) in contrast with nonsignificant HF-HRV effects (P=.87). Postintervention PPD and PTSD symptom outcomes (CAPS 5 and PCL-5) were correlated (P=.05), suggesting associations between self-report and PPD indicative of improved autonomic balance. HF-HRV results were discrepant, apparently unaffected by the intervention, and uncorrelated with self-reported benefits.

Participants with PTSD, compared with participants without PTSD, had significantly lower (pre- and postintervention) HF-HRV across all protocol phases. The mean BL resting HR in participants without PTSD was significantly lower than that in participants with PTSD. This finding is congruent with prior research examining the impact of trauma exposure and PTSD on autonomic dysregulation via HR and HF-HRV [111,112] and the findings of reduced capacities to psychophysiologically modulate in response to environmental changes [113,114]. During the lab procedure, the participants without PTSD exhibited significantly higher HF-HRV during stress onset (0-5 minutes) compared with that at rest, suggesting self-regulatory effectiveness and the mobilization of parasympathetic activity during negative image exposures [115]. In contrast, there were no significant changes in HF-HRV among participants with PTSD from rest to stress at BL or postintervention.

PTSD is often associated with comorbidities related to low and invariant HF-HRV [116-118]. It is possible that the chronicity of childhood trauma exposure (9.97 years duration) and severity of depression at BL had a blunting effect on HF-HRV during the protocol. Nonresponsive HF-HRV to a therapeutic intervention has been observed in patients with major depressive disorder [119,120]. Research examining the link between childhood emotional abuse and HF-HRV among women indicated that depressed women with histories of childhood emotional abuse exhibited significant HF-HRV decrements compared with depressed women without childhood abuse (d=0.90) and controls (d=0.87) [121]. These findings suggest that childhood emotional abuse is a strong predictor of impaired parasympathetic control.

Although PPD reductions across the 25-minute protocol were predicted, it is unclear why significant reductions were observed in PPD but not HF-HRV. An explanation involves mechanisms unique to ocular versus cardiac functioning. Theoretically, PPD reflects a more proximal and immediate form of threat reactivity than HF-HRV, as PPD responses appear to precede the autonomic reactions assessed by HF-HRV [21,113,122]. Although HF-HRV changes apparently reflect autonomic responses heavily influenced by cognitive–emotive responses, PPD changes reflect precognitive hypervigilance, hypothesized as prevalent in PTSD [21,113,122]. The varying foci of PPD and HF-HRV measurements in this study also substantially differed. PPD, representing autonomic function, was measured within the first 300 to 500 milliseconds of the onset of an image stimulus. This represents a significant duration difference from the recommended HF-HRV measurement of 5-minute epochs [92]. Not only does this indicate that PPD and HF-HRV measurement differences were, retrospectively, predictable as the observation period differed but also suggests that the physiological responses of participants differed significantly during image exposure. In the PPD response, participants were apparently less reactive to images at postintervention than at BL, whereas HF-HRV remained invariant and indicated sustained autonomic dysregulation at postintervention. Theoretically, the ability to sustain a less threatened response via HF-HRV is unlikely as participants are highly vulnerable to the more habit-based cognitive rumination and catastrophizing responses that kick in after an initially less disturbed image response [23]. Prior research has indicated an indirect relationship between HF-HRV and PPD, with low HF-HRV linked with perseverative cognition symptoms [123,124], which has been shown to be linked with greater pupil dilation to negative stimuli [125,126].

Few studies have explored the direct associations between HRV and the associated pupil response during rest, stress-induced, and meditation phases in clinical samples. Our findings are supported by a recent study by Macatee et al [127] that examined emotional processing indications of pupillary response and vagally mediated HRV in a nonclinical sample exposed to positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. HRV was unrelated to negative emotional processing and was not significantly associated with the pupillary indices of negative stimuli [127]. In contrast, low HRV predicted decreased pupil dilation to positive stimuli after a stress phase, reflecting altered positive emotional processing following stress induction [127]. As our study did not include positive emotional stimuli, a direct comparison was not possible. Future versions of our study should include positive emotional stimuli to better assess emotional processing in adults with PTSD via HRV and PPD and their associations.

A number of critical questions in our study merit further consideration. The first question is whether the selected negative emotional images were sufficiently evocative to elicit an autonomic stress response during the stress phase of the lab protocol. Our findings contrast with similar research conducted by Cascardi et al [128] that indicated that individuals who met PTSD diagnostic criteria showed large effect size differences (d=0.75) in pupil dilation to threatening stimuli compared with that of trauma-exposed controls without PTSD (P<.015). All the threatening images used by Cascardi et al [128] had an IAPS arousal rating of >6 [83]. The mean arousal rating of the images in our study was 5.51, and only 28% (17/60) of the selected images had an arousal rating of >6 [83,84]. Our preference for milder images, because of concern for the welfare of traumatized participants, may explain the nonsignificant PPD differences during the emotional image stress condition with the convenience sample of participants without PTSD.

However, another critical question is the extent to which the addition of positive stimuli might identify additional relationships between HRV and pupil response in participants with PTSD. In a recent cross-sectional study that examined pupil response to negative and positive images in individuals diagnosed with PTSD, McKinnon et al [21] found significantly larger pupil dilation in both threatening and positive (happy) images among individuals with PTSD than in controls exposed to trauma with no diagnosed PTSD (threatening, d=0.87; happy, d=0.73) and controls with no trauma exposure (threatening, d=0.85; happy, d=0.97). These findings suggest that autonomic function in PTSD is sensitive to both negative and positive image stimuli. Future studies of autonomic responses to a variety of emotional stimuli would advance the use of pupillometry as a PTSD biomarker. McKinnon et al [21] used a shorter image presentation (2000 ms) than our study (10 seconds), and each image was preceded and followed by a gray screen with a neutral fixation cross to allow the pupil to return to BL. Additional variations in used equipment and analysis procedures make precise comparisons difficult; however, the results from the McKinnon et al [21] study and our study findings lend support to further use of pupillometry in the assessment of emotional dysregulation and treatment of PTSD.

Our sample of participants reported spending an average of 12 min/day in self-directed mindfulness-based practice, which may have been sufficient to alter PPD-assessed precognitive autonomic function but insufficient to improve the autonomic regulation measured by HF-HRV. Prior controlled trials examining the effects of mindfulness on precognitive autonomic function have found significantly higher gray matter concentrations in the left hippocampal region of the brain in generally healthy meditators who spent 27 min/day in mindfulness [129] and changes in the connectivity of white matter fibers adjacent to the thalamus among long-term meditators (>15 years [130]). The thalamus relays immediate sensory information (as implicated in pupil dilation) and the hippocampal region modulates cortical arousal and emotional response [129,130]. Unfortunately, none of the referenced studies involved PPD measurements of autonomic function. Nonetheless, the reductions in PPD in our study, despite invariant HF-HRV, provide partial support for our hypothesized changes toward normative autonomic function after 8 weeks of the CBT-MY intervention. Given the known toxic effects of PTSD psychopathology on select brain regions (eg, decreased density of hippocampus), the lack of HF-HRV improvement is possibly explained by such effects [129].

Achieving states of safety, autonomic regulation via HF-HRV, and relaxation are challenging for individuals who are traumatized, and recovery rates vary in association with severity of PTSD symptoms, comorbidities, duration of trauma exposure, and time since last exposure [46,118,131,132]. Our sample of participants reported approximately double the number of direct trauma exposures than the national average [2] and disclosed childhood trauma that extended for a mean duration of 9.97 years, which has been associated with significant pathology across the life span and long-term deficits to health and overall functioning [118]. Nonetheless, the significant reductions in PPD found in this study appear to reflect positive intervention responses.

With positive changes in PPD, individuals with PTSD could experience environments as less dangerous and assess potential threats more normatively. Over time, such changes might be accompanied by positive responses in autonomic balance. Future randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining longer intervention periods would help ascertain the ideal dosage of self-directed learning required to improve HRV. In this 8-week study, the effects appear sufficient to reduce hypervigilance, although not yet sufficient for improvements in HF-HRV.

The strengths of this study include the rigorous clinical PTSD screening and assessment. The CAPS-5, a clinician-administered structured interview, is labor intensive but intended to be flexible and precise [63]. In addition, the PCL-5, a self-rated PTSD assessment, was used to precisely define and measure PTSD in conjunction with objective markers of autonomic function. The autonomic function of participants with PTSD and direct comparisons with a convenience cohort of relatively normative participants without PTSD were also conducted to assess psychophysiological differences.

There was a notable risk of experimenter bias with respect to PTSD assessments, as the CAPS-5 interview was conducted by a researcher who intervened with participants. However, there was a review process in which a trained second researcher with no relation to the study examined and verified all the scoring. As therapeutic alliances can significantly influence therapeutic outcomes, especially in the presence of childhood abuse [133], there was a possible confounding factor in the interview-based assessment. This issue was addressed through the additional use of the PCL-5, the self-rated counterpart to the CAPS-5, and the objective measures of autonomic function, especially PPD.

The attrition rate of the single-arm experimental trial was 18.2%, with 18% (4/22) of participants with PTSD not completing the postintervention follow-up measures, which limited a full understanding of the intervention effect. Of the 4 participants, 2 (50%) withdrew at week 2 and week 7, self-reporting child care obligations (week 2) and current trauma or stress exposure (week 7) as reasons, and the remaining 2 (50%) were lost to follow-up without providing any reason. On the basis of the CAPS-5 outcomes, the 4 participants who withdrew had significantly higher symptom severity for Criterion D: negative cognition and mood symptoms, suggesting that the intervention may be best implemented as an adjunctive treatment in combination with clinical psychological treatment addressing low mood or as a stand-alone program after acute mood symptoms and cognitions have improved. Other considerations such as time barriers and work or parenthood demands may be key factors to consider for future RCTs.

Although we controlled for multiple health factors in our research, our models did not account for the influence of pharmacotherapy on PPD and HF-HRV because of the small sample size and substantial heterogeneity in prescription type and dosage, as well as the lack of randomization. Evidence suggests that patients with a psychiatric diagnosis treated with tricyclic antidepressants demonstrate decreased HRV [134] as they contain anticholinergic compounds observed to reduce HRV. Tricyclic use could partially explain our nonsignificant HF-HRV results [134].

The results of this study must be interpreted with caution as they may not generalize to larger, more diverse samples. In addition to our small sample, the participants were mostly White, female, and highly educated. Nonetheless, these data provide a unique departure from the focus on war veterans in existing PTSD research. Other clear limitations include the lack of a randomly allocated waitlist control group, measurement blinding, and assessment of long-term changes and intervention effect maintenance.

This study provides preliminary support for the effectiveness of web-based CBT-MY in the treatment of PTSD. The combination of CBT with mindfulness and yoga practice appears to summatively contribute to PTSD recovery. Future RCTs should examine whether the present findings extend to larger and more diverse samples and whether gains achieved are maintained over time. Undertreated populations with PTSD may be treated more effectively with web-based treatment and delivery methods that are more accessible, reducing the social and human costs of PTSD.