Effectiveness of Narrative Exposure Therapy Among Refugee Children and Adolescents

Tampere University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Narrative Exposure Therapy; Treatment as Usual

Treatments: Behavioral: Narrative Exposure Therapy; Behavioral: Treatment as Usual

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02425280

275804

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aims to understand how war trauma affects children's and adolescents' memory functions and mental health, and whether Narrative Exposure Therapy is effective in enhancing optimal memory functions and alleviating mental health problems. The study analyzes the mental health and cognitive and emotional healing mechanisms of therapeutic intervention among war-affected children and adolescents.

Enrollment: 50 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 9 to 17 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 9-17 years old
• has spent some part of her/his life living in a country where organized violence was taking place, or at a refugee camp
• suffers from significant stress symptoms thought be trauma-related

Exclusion criteria

• acute psychosis
• intellectual disability

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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50 participants in 2 patient groups

Narrative Exposure Therapy

Experimental group

Description:

For the intervention group receiving Narrative Exposure Therapy treatment, the intervention will last for approximately three months and include 10-12 weekly sessions of 60-90 minutes. The course of the intervention will follow the NET manual (Schauer et al., 2011).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Narrative Exposure Therapy

Treatment as Usual

Active Comparator group

Description:

For the TAU control group, participants will receive the usual care for posttraumatic stress symptoms currently offered by each unit.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Treatment as Usual