Mind-body Skills Groups for War-Related Trauma in Adolescents in Gaza

December 27, 2025 updated by: Jamil Abdel Atti, The Center for Mind-Body Medicine

Mind-body Skills Groups for the Treatment of War-Related Trauma in Adolescents in Gaza: A Randomized Controlled Study

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if mind-body skills groups can reduce posttraumatic stress disorder and emotional and behavioral problems in war-traumatized adolescents in Gaza.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

  • Do mind-body skills groups reduce posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in war-traumatized adolescents in Gaza?
  • Do mind-body skills groups reduce emotional and behavioral problems in war-traumatized adolescents in Gaza?

Researchers will compare the results of adolescents who do not attend mind-body skills groups to adolescents who attend mind-body skills groups see if those who attend groups have less posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and emotional and behavioral problems.

Participants will:

  • Be screened to determine whether they qualify to be in the study
  • If they qualify, they will attend 5 mind-body skills group sessions (if they are not in the control group)
  • Fill out research packets before the first session, after the last session, and at 2-month follow-up.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

120

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

  • Name: Jamil A Atti, PhD
  • Phone Number: +972 (8) 288 8359
  • Email: jatti@cmbm.org

Study Locations

  • Palestinian Territories
      • Deir al-Balah, Palestinian Territories, P920
        • Recruiting
        • The Center for Mind-Body Medicine
        • Contact:
          • Jamil A Atti, PhD
          • Phone Number: +972 (8) 288 8359
          • Email: jatti@cmbm.org
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Jamil A Atti, PhD

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • being 11-17 years old and living in Gaza
  • having experienced a political violence or war-related criterion A stressor
  • meeting the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-(DSM-5-TR) criteria for PTSD according to the screening cut-off score on the Child PTSD Symptom Scale-5 (CPSS-5).

Exclusion Criteria:

  • former psychotherapy or medication to treat mental disorders
  • having significant cognitive impairment.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Wait List Control
Experimental: Mind-Body Skills Groups
Behavioral: Mind-Body Skills Groups
Small group intervention consisting of guided imagery, slow deep breathing, autogenic training, drawings, and active techniques.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Child Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale - 5
Time Frame: Before first group session, 2 weeks, 2 months
Self-report Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptom scale with scores from 0 to 80. Higher scores indicate worse outcomes.
Before first group session, 2 weeks, 2 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Youth Pediatric Symptom Checklist-17
Time Frame: Before first group session, 2 weeks, 2 months
Assessment of Psychosocial Functioning with score range 0 - 34. Higher scores indicate worse outcomes.
Before first group session, 2 weeks, 2 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine

Collaborators

Americares

Investigators

  • Study Director: Julie K. Staples, PhD, The Center for Mind-Body Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

  • Staples JK, Abdel Atti JA, Gordon JS. Mind-body skills groups for posttraumatic stress disorder and depression symptoms in Palestinian children and adolescents in Gaza. Int J Stress Manag. 2011; 18(3): 246-262. doi:/10.1037/trm0000081

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

December 26, 2025

Primary Completion (Estimated)

March 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

March 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 7, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 18, 2025

First Posted (Estimated)

December 24, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

December 30, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 27, 2025

Last Verified

December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • GT-CMBM-003

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

All de-identified individual patient data

IPD Sharing Time Frame

Beginning upon publication of the results

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

Anyone may access the de-identified individual patient data through supplemental material published by the journal

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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