Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies
Volume 2011, Issue 1, 2011

Culture-Sensitive and Resource Oriented Peer (CROP) - groups as a community based intervention for trauma survivors: A randomized controlled pilot study with refugees and asylum seekers from Chechnya (Article)

Renner W.* , Bänninger-Huber E. , Peltzer K.
  • a University of Innsbruck and UMIT, Private University of Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, Dept. of Psychology, Innrain 52, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
  • b University of Innsbruck, Department of Psychology, Innrain 52, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
  • c Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health, Human Sciences Research Council, Department of Psychology, University of the Free State, South Africa

Abstract

Asylum seekers and refugees frequently suffer from post-traumatic stress and culturally sensitive methods towards reducing symptoms should be taken into account. The aim of the work reported here was to examine the effectiveness of Culture-Sensitive and Resource Oriented Peer (CROP) - Groups for Chechen asylum seekers and refugees towards reducing post-traumatic symptoms, anxiety, and depression. Some ninety-four participants were randomly assigned to 15 sessions of CROP - or Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) - Groups, to 3 single sessions of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), or to a Wait-List (WL). The results indicated that CROP was significantly superior to WL, and was equally effective as CBT in reducing post-traumatic symptoms, anxiety, and depression. Improvements still were present at three and six month follow-up occasions. EMDR yielded negative results. According to this pilot study, CROP-Groups pose a promising, culturally sensitive alternative to psychotherapy with Chechen migrants. © 2011. Walter Renner, Eva Bänninger-Huber & Karl Peltzer.

Author Keywords

Self-help Post-traumatic stress Asylum seekers Evaluation Refugees

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-80052164840&partnerID=40&md5=f5ed9a966c2746b4a07392e6229f825d
ISSN: 11744707
Cited by: 6
Original Language: English