A brief transdiagnostic psychological intervention for Afghan asylum seekers and refugees in Austria: a randomized controlled trial

Autor(en)

Matthias Knefel, Viktoria Kantor, Dina Weindl, Jennifer Schieß-Jokanovic, Andrew Nicholson, Lucia Verginer, Ingo Schäfer, Brigitte Lueger-Schuster

Abstrakt

Background: Afghan refugees often face hardship and traumatic experiences before, during, and after migration and frequently suffer from mental health burdens. Evidence based psychological treatments for refugees mostly focus on symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), however, refugees often suffer from a variety of general health problems as well as depression and anxiety. We thus aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a transdiagnostic psychological intervention. Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of an adapted version of Problem Management Plus (aPM+) delivered by mental health professionals to adult Afghan refugees and asylum seekers.

Methods: We randomly allocated 88 Afghan refugees either to aPM+ in addition to treatment as usual (aPM+/TAU) or TAU alone. APM+ comprises of six weekly 90-minute individual sessions including strategies of stress management, problem solving, behavioural activation, strengthening social support and either anger regulation or increasing self-efficacy. The primary outcome was general health (GHQ-28) post intervention. Secondary outcome measures included distress by PMLD, Complex PTSD symptoms, quality of life, self-identified problems, and integration.

Results: Attrition was high: 42% of the randomized participants did not participate in the posttreatment assessment. A repeated measures per-protocol (completers only) ANCOVA evidenced a significant group x timepoint interaction for GHQ total scores [F(1, 47) = 14.80, p

Conclusion: APM+ was effective in reducing general health problems in Afghan refugees and might be considered as a first-line intervention. High drop-out rate limit the interpretations of our results, where future investigations should focus on possibilities to reduce these rates.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Klinische und Gesundheitspsychologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, McMaster University

Journal

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

Band

Anzahl der Seiten

ISSN

2000-8066

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2022.2068911

Publikationsdatum

12-2022

Peer-reviewed

ÖFOS 2012

501010 Klinische Psychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Psychiatry and Mental health

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 16 – Frieden, Gerechtigkeit und starke Institutionen

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/45003ed9-9108-43cc-bacc-9e4bdbd73d04