Seven-Year Follow-Up Study of Symptoms in Asylum Seekers and Refugees With PTSD Treated With Trauma-Focused Groups.

OBJECTIVE:

To examine sustainability of symptom outcomes of a 1-year phase-based trauma-focused, multimodal, and multicomponent group therapy in a day treatment program for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) over an average period of 7 years.

METHOD:

Iranian and Afghan patients (N = 69) were assessed with self-rated symptom checklists for PTSD, anxiety, and depression symptoms before (T1), after (T2), and up to 11 years upon completion of the treatment (T3). A series of mixed model regression analyses was applied to determine the course of the measured symptoms over time.

RESULTS:

At T2, all symptoms were reduced, but PTSD symptoms showed the strongest reduction. The trend of symptom reduction continued up to 5 years posttreatment and was similar for all the examined symptoms. After 5 years, all symptoms started to worsen, but remained under baseline levels at T3.

CONCLUSIONS:

The applied treatment appears to improve mental health of the studied sample on both the short and longer term.