NCT05241314

FMBI With War-affected Families

Intergenerational Trauma in War-affected Families: Promoting Adolescent Adjustment Through a Family Mindfulness-based Intervention

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 25 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Minnesota · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 11 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study has two central research questions: 1) Is implementing a family mindfulness-based intervention with war-affected immigrant families through community based participatory research methods feasible?; and 2) Does the intervention demonstrate preliminary improvements in the social and behavioral health of war-affected caregivers and youth by addressing patterns of behavior that potentiate intergenerational trauma? The objective in the proposed study is to use Community Based Participatory Research strategies to test the feasibility and acceptability of a mindfulness-based intervention for Karen refugee families living post-resettlement in the United States. A key focus in this phase of the pilot will be intervention adaptation and establishing fidelity monitoring and quality improvement procedures through which the PI and community health worker interventionists are trained and evaluated in the delivery of the intervention.

Detailed description

Intergenerational trauma is a major public health problem impacting war-affected families. The investigators' specific research contribution will test the feasibility of a 7-week family mindfulness-based intervention addressing key mechanisms central to the health of war-affected families. The significance of this contribution is tied to the conceptual understanding that caregivers uniquely influence the ways in which their children process trauma, experience stressful events, and thrive socially, behaviorally and physically. The responses of youth, in turn, affect the well-being of their parents. Left unaddressed, intergenerational trauma will continue to negatively impact the health and life course of immigrant youth and families. Collectively, this contributes to: higher burden of unaddressed mental and physical health disturbances in caregivers and youth; disruptions in family systems and community structures that negatively impact educational achievement and other indicators of youth adjustment; and increased exposure to familial and community violence. If a mindfulness-based intervention delivered directly to war-affected families in their homes can demonstrate improvements in the behavioral and social health effects of war trauma experienced by caregivers and their youth, then this study has the potential to offer a novel, effective approach to disrupting the generational impacts of war on war-affected families. The study will engage mothers, fathers, and youth to address intergenerational trauma fully. The investigators will establish plans for collaborative dissemination with WellShare International in phase I of the Clinical Translational Research Service pilot award, including academic dissemination (presentation and publication) as well as dissemination of results among key stakeholders and community members.

Conditions

• Family Mindfulness-based Intervention in War-affected Families
• Intergenerational Trauma
• War-Related Trauma

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Learning to BREATHE	A 6 session group-based intervention targeting adolescent mindfulness. The adapted and merged intervention will be delivered to individual families (home-based) in twice-weekly sessions over a 7-week period by two community health worker interventionists.
BEHAVIORAL	After Deployment Adaptive Parenting Tools (ADAPT)	A 14 session group-based mindful parenting intervention originally developed to increase emotion regulation among military caregivers with young children and improve youth adjustment. The adapted and merged intervention will be delivered to individual families (home-based) in twice-weekly sessions over a 7-week period by two community health worker interventionists.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-01-01
• Primary completion: 2023-01-01
• Completion: 2023-01-01
• First posted: 2022-02-15
• Last updated: 2025-04-02
• Results posted: 2025-04-02

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States