Psychological Skills Group for Youth of Refugee and Immigrant Backgrounds

There are currently 28 million child refugees worldwide - approximately 1 in every 200 children on earth. To date, nearly one million forcibly displaced child migrants have been resettled in the United States. It is well documented that refugee and immigrant youth, especially forcibly displaced ethnic and cultural minority youth, present with alarmingly high rates of stress-related psychiatric illness (e.g., PTSD, depression, anxiety) and are grossly underserved by current mental health, medical, and social services. Previous research found that in a sample of 144 Somali refugee children resettled in the United States, only 8% of those who met full clinical criteria for PTSD received any mental health services. Through a process of community-based participatory research with refugee and immigrant communities and stake-holders the investigators have developed a multi-tiered psychological and systems intervention for refugee youth and families, Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees (TST-R), that includes community outreach and advocacy, group psychological treatment, office-based psychotherapy, and home-based services.

Whereas TST-R is one of the only empirically-based behavioral health treatment models for refugee youth, it has only been studied as a full intervention model; financial and staffing resource barriers have limited the wide-spread adoption of the model. This obstacle noted, implementing one high-impact component of this multi-tier intervention (i.e., protocol-driven group treatments) may provide significant benefit while also being easily scalable. Implementing time-limited (i.e., 10 week) manual-based group psychological interventions focused on culturally-responsive strategies to support refugee youth with, and at-risk for, PTSD, depression, and anxiety, may be an efficient and cost effective means of (1) reducing psychiatric symptoms for refugee and migrant youth with present symptoms, (2) preventing symptom onset for those at risk, and (3) enhancing cultural identity self-concept, subjective social belongingness, and psychological resilience (e.g., ability to thrive in the context of adversity). Furthermore, if effective, treatment groups can importantly function as a destigmatizing treatment gateway and triage to other services for youth who require a higher level of care (e.g., individual psychotherapy and medication management).

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Stress, Psychological; Acculturation Problem
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees Group Intervention

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 13
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02215
      • Boston Children's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 15 years to 18 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Age 15-18 years old living in the Greater Boston Area.
• Of refugee or immigrant background (e.g., youth or a parent arrived to the USA as a refugee or immigrant)
• No current plans to move from Greater Boston Area within the next 6 months
• Conversationally proficient in English language

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not able to attend group once a week for 10 weeks
• Medical, cognitive, or other health or psychosocial issue that would prevent consistent and engagement and participation in group.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Psychological Skills Group (e.g., Active Intervention); 10-week Psychological Skills Group.	Behavioral: Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugees Group Intervention; Psychological skills group for youth of refugee and immigrant backgrounds.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Depression Symptoms	Depression as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Self-report depression scale, higher scores mean greater symptoms of depression (e.g., worse outcome). Total score sum may range from 0 to 27.	Change from Baseline after 10 weeks of the intervention.
Anxiety Symptoms	Anxiety as measured by the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). Self-report anxiety scale, higher scores mean greater symptoms of anxiety (e.g., worse outcome). Total score sum may range from 0 to 21.	Change from Baseline after 10 weeks of the intervention.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Symptoms	PTSD as measured by the STRESS (Structured Trauma-Related Experiences and Symptoms Screener). Self-report PTSD scale, higher scores mean greater symptoms of PTSD (e.g., worse outcome). Total score sum may range from 0 to 68.	Change from Baseline after 10 weeks of the intervention.
Cultural Identity Self-Concept	Cultural Identity Self-Concept measured with social and cultural identities adapted version of Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire (CFQ). Self-report measure. Higher scores indicate greater cognitive and emotional suffering related to social and cultural identity self-concept (example item: "my thoughts about my social and cultural identities cause me distress or emotional pain." Total score sum may range from 0 to 42. Higher scores indicate worse outcome.	Change from Baseline after 10 weeks of intervention.
Self-Efficacy	Self-Efficacy measured by New General Self-Efficacy Scale (NGSES). Self-report measure. Higher scores indicate greater perceived ability to accomplish goals and overcome challenges (example item: "I will be able to achieve most of the goals that I have set for myself.") Total score sum may range from 0 to 48. Higher scores indicate better outcome.	Change from Baseline after 10 weeks of intervention.
Social Belongingness	Social Belongingness as measured by the General Belongingness Scale (GBS). Self-report measure. Higher scores indicate greater sense of social belongingness (example item: "I feel connected with others.") Total score sum may range from 0 to 72. Higher scores indicate better outcome.	Change from Baseline after 10 weeks of intervention.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Boston Children's Hospital

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Spitzer RL, Kroenke K, Williams JB, Lowe B. A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: the GAD-7. Arch Intern Med. 2006 May 22;166(10):1092-7. doi: 10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092.
• Ellis BH, Miller AB, Abdi S, Barrett C, Blood EA, Betancourt TS. Multi-tier mental health program for refugee youth. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2013 Feb;81(1):129-40. doi: 10.1037/a0029844. Epub 2012 Aug 27.
• Ellis BH, MacDonald HZ, Lincoln AK, Cabral HJ. Mental health of Somali adolescent refugees: the role of trauma, stress, and perceived discrimination. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2008 Apr;76(2):184-93. doi: 10.1037/0022-006X.76.2.184.
• Bogic M, Njoku A, Priebe S. Long-term mental health of war-refugees: a systematic literature review. BMC Int Health Hum Rights. 2015 Oct 28;15:29. doi: 10.1186/s12914-015-0064-9.
• Grasso DJ, Felton JW, Reid-Quinones K. The Structured Trauma-Related Experiences and Symptoms Screener (STRESS): Development and Preliminary Psychometrics. Child Maltreat. 2015 Aug;20(3):214-20. doi: 10.1177/1077559515588131. Epub 2015 Jun 19.
• Lustig SL, Kia-Keating M, Knight WG, Geltman P, Ellis H, Kinzie JD, Keane T, Saxe GN. Review of child and adolescent refugee mental health. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2004 Jan;43(1):24-36. doi: 10.1097/00004583-200401000-00012.
• Alegria M, Vallas M, Pumariega AJ. Racial and ethnic disparities in pediatric mental health. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am. 2010 Oct;19(4):759-74. doi: 10.1016/j.chc.2010.07.001.
• Spitzer RL, Kroenke K, Williams JB. Validation and utility of a self-report version of PRIME-MD: the PHQ primary care study. Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders. Patient Health Questionnaire. JAMA. 1999 Nov 10;282(18):1737-44. doi: 10.1001/jama.282.18.1737.
• Gillanders DT, Bolderston H, Bond FW, Dempster M, Flaxman PE, Campbell L, Kerr S, Tansey L, Noel P, Ferenbach C, Masley S, Roach L, Lloyd J, May L, Clarke S, Remington B. The development and initial validation of the cognitive fusion questionnaire. Behav Ther. 2014 Jan;45(1):83-101. doi: 10.1016/j.beth.2013.09.001. Epub 2013 Sep 18.
• Malone, G. P., Pillow, D. R., Osman, A. (2012). The General Belongingness Scale (GBS): Assessing achieved belongingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 52(3), 311-316.
• Chen, G., Gully, S. M., & Eden, D. (2001). Validation of a new general self-efficacy scale. Organizational research methods, 4(1), 62-83.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 28, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 1, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): February 9, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 28, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 3, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): December 4, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): February 23, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 22, 2023
• Last Verified: February 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Stress, Psychological
• Other Study ID Numbers: IRB-P00029550

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No