Hasha Wegdan, Igland Jannicke, Fadnes Lars T, Kumar Bernadette N, Heltne Unni M, Diaz Esperanza
Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Årstadveien 17, 5009, Bergen, Norway.
Department of Addiction Medicine, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
Int J Ment Health Syst. 2022 Sep 6;16(1):47. doi: 10.1186/s13033-022-00557-4.
Mental health symptoms among refugees are common, often related to chronic pain disorders, and their management is usually challenging. Studies evaluating the effect of group therapies among adult refugees to improve mental health symptoms are scarce.
To assess the effect of Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) on mental health and to reduce pain disorder among adult Syrian refugees.
A randomized controlled trial was designed to study the effect of a self-help group intervention using TRT. The outcomes, mental health symptoms measured by Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and chronic pain measured by Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), were reported as regression coefficients (B) with 95% confidence intervals.
Seventy-six adults participated: 38 in the intervention and 38 in the control groups. Intention-to-treat analyses showed a significant effect on general mental health as measured by GHQ-12 with B (95% CI) of -3.8 (-7.2, -0.4). There was no effect of TRT on mental health when assessed by IES-R (-1.3 (-8.7, 6.2)) or on pain levels assessed by BPI (-0.04 (-4.0, 3.9)).
This self-help group intervention significantly improved general mental health symptoms among adult refugees but had no effect on trauma symptoms or chronic pain. Higher participation rates might be necessary to achieve the full potential of TRT.
The trial was registered with Clinical Trials.gov at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03951909 . To include user participation in the design of the interventions, the study was retrospectively registered on 19 February 2019.
难民中的心理健康症状很常见，通常与慢性疼痛障碍有关，其管理通常具有挑战性。评估团体治疗对成年难民心理健康症状改善效果的研究很少。
评估康复技术教学（TRT）对成年叙利亚难民心理健康的影响，并减轻疼痛障碍。
设计了一项随机对照试验，以研究使用TRT的自助团体干预的效果。结果，用事件影响量表修订版（IES-R）和一般健康问卷（GHQ-12）测量的心理健康症状，以及用简明疼痛量表（BPI）测量的慢性疼痛，以回归系数（B）和95%置信区间报告。
76名成年人参与：38人在干预组，38人在对照组。意向性分析显示，用GHQ-12测量的一般心理健康有显著效果，B（95%CI）为-3.8（-7.2，-0.4）。当用IES-R评估时，TRT对心理健康没有影响（-1.3（-8.7，6.2）），对用BPI评估的疼痛水平也没有影响（-0.04（-4.0，3.9））。
这种自助团体干预显著改善了成年难民的一般心理健康症状，但对创伤症状或慢性疼痛没有影响。可能需要更高的参与率才能充分发挥TRT的潜力。
该试验在ClinicalTrials.gov上注册，网址为https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03951909 。为了让用户参与干预措施的设计，该研究于2019年2月19日进行了回顾性注册。
