Promoting Asylum-seeking and Refugee Children's Coping With Trauma

Norwegian Institute of Public Health

Status: Completed

Conditions: Social Anxiety; Mental Health Disorder; Depression; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Adolescence

Treatments: Behavioral: Teaching Recovery Techniques, TRT

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03822598

16/54571

Details and patient eligibility

About

A short term trauma-focused cognitive- behavioral program to reduce trauma-related mental health problems among asylum-seeking and refugee children.

The main hypothesis of the study is that the TRT program significantly improves mental health (i.e. reduces symptoms of post-traumatic symptoms, depression and generalized anxiety and increases perceived quality of life (Qol) in the intervention group compared to the waiting-list control group.

Full description

Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) was developed by Children and War Foundation (www.childrenandwarfoundation.org ) as a tool to support children in coping with their mental reactions to being exposed to war and catastrophes. TRT has proven to be effective in reducing trauma-related mental health symptoms in such contexts. However, it has never been used with children experiencing all the uncertainties and stress of an asylum-seeking context, or with refugee children in high-income countries. The main aim of the present study is therefore to implement and evaluate the TRT among asylum-seeking and refugee children in the context of four different care conditions: 1)asylum-seeking children who arrived accompanied by a legal care-taker 2) asylum-seeking children less than 15 years in care centers administered by the Child Welfare Services 3) asylum-seeking children 15 years and older living in asylum centers regulated by the Directorate of Immigration 4) Former unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have been granted residence (refugees) and are resettled in a municipality in Norway.

Based on Power analyses, the target group is 40 children in each care condition (total n = 160) > 9 years speaking Arabic, Tigrinya, Somali, Dari, or Pashto.

The study employs a randomized clustered experimental design that includes a waiting list control group, which will receive the TRT when the intervention group has completed the program.

Enrollment: 170 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 20 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Accompanied asylum-seeking children living in reception centers,
• Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children living in reception centers
• Unaccompanied refugee minors who have been granted residence

Children in the target Groups reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress above clinical cut-off on Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale, 8 items

Exclusion criteria

• Psychosis,
• Mental disabilities

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Sequential Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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170 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention group

Experimental group

Description:

Teaching Recovery Techniques implemented 1- 3 weeks after recruitment

Treatment:

Behavioral: Teaching Recovery Techniques, TRT

Wait-list control group

Active Comparator group

Description:

Delayed implementation of Teaching Recovery Techniques (after the experimental group has completed the program)

Treatment:

Behavioral: Teaching Recovery Techniques, TRT