Impact of supportive text messages on Post Traumatic Stress Injury Symptoms

In a study which examined the effectiveness of Text4Hope program in alleviating psychological symptoms and improving wellbeing among subscribers in Alberta and Nova Scotia during the 2023 wildfires, there were significant reductions in the mean scores on the PTSD Checklist 5 (−5.8%) from baseline to six weeks. In the naturalistic controlled study, the intervention group who had received the daily messages for six weeks had a significantly lower mean score on the PTSD Checklist 5 (−17.5%) from baseline to six weeks compared to the control group who had subscribed to the program but had not yet received any messages.

There was a decrease in the mean scores on the PTSD PCL-C from baseline to six months post-intervention by 9.5% for public safety officers who subscribed to the Text4PTSI program.