Promoting Asylum-seeking and Refugee Children's Coping With Trauma
Condition: Mental Health Disorder; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Adolescence; Depression; Social Anxiety
MeSH terms: Stress Disorders, Traumatic; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic; Mental Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      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.
    

Detailed 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.
    

Intervention name(s): Teaching Recovery Techniques, TRT
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): TRT is a , low-threshold, group based, manual driven short term intervention to reduce trauma-related mental health problems. The program is based on principles from trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy
Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention model: Sequential Assignment
Intervention model description: Two stages of recruitment: 1) We recruited asylum reception centers and refugee resettlement municipalities located all over Norway 2) Invite asylum-seeking and refugee children in these institutions to participate, and assigning them by intstitution to control and intervention conditions. The intervention groups started implementing TRT between late September and late October. The control groups started implementing TRT between medio November and beginning of February.
Masking: Double (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Treatment
Keywords: Teaching Recovery Techniques; Asylum-seeking children; Refugee children; Low-threshold intervention