Video NET With CYP Who Witnessed Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence Clinical Trial

Official title:

Video Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) With Children and Young People Who Witnessed Domestic Violence: A Naturalistic Single Case Study Series

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04866511
• Other study ID #: 21003
• Secondary ID: 291108
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: April 13, 2021
• Est. completion date: April 11, 2022

Study information

• Verified date: January 2023
• Source: University of Nottingham
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Research suggests that children and young people (CYP) who witness domestic violence are susceptible to develop Post-traumatic stress (PTS). As their traumatic experiences are often repeated and prolonged, these CYP are likely to present with 'complex trauma' presentations, which also include other difficulties such as depressive symptoms and problems in functioning.

This study aims to investigate whether Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) delivered via videoconferencing can be effective, feasible, and acceptable for CYP who witnessed domestic violence. NET is a brief, evidence-based intervention for complex trauma which has been adapted for CYP. The study will use a 'single case study series' design and look at whether NET can impact on PTS, psychological distress, and functioning. It will also look at the processes of change within NET and participants' experience of the therapy. Young people aged 12-17 who are experiencing PTS after exposure to domestic violence will be recruited from the waiting lists of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Up to six participants will receive six to ten weekly video sessions and the changes in the outcomes will be explored before, during and after NET. Finally, participants will be interviewed about their experiences.

The study is part of a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme and funded by Health Education England. Potential benefits include investigating NET with a new group, contributing to the research on complex trauma interventions for CYP, and providing insights on the effectiveness and acceptability of therapies via video.

Description:

The purpose of the study is to investigate the potential effectiveness, feasibility, acceptability and putative mechanisms of change of video NET with children and young people who witnessed domestic violence.

The primary objective of the study is to evaluate whether video NET can reduce PTS in this group.

The secondary objectives of the study are:

• To determine whether video NET can also impact on general psychological distress and functioning;

• To examine the putative mechanisms of change within NET, i.e. habituation and integration of trauma memories;

• To explore the feasibility and acceptability of video NET.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 5
• Est. completion date: April 11, 2022
• Est. primary completion date: March 11, 2022
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 12 Years to 17 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria - Participants must:

• Be aged 12- 17;

• Have witnessed domestic violence in the past;

• Be experiencing clinical levels of post-traumatic stress, as assessed by a member of the CAMHS team;

• Be on the waiting list to receive trauma-focused treatment;

• If 16 or over, be able to consent to take part, as assessed by a member of the CAMHS team;

• If under 16, have at least one person with parental authority who can consent for them. These young people will also be asked to provide their assent;

• Be able to communicate verbally and speak English;

• Have access to a device with a webcam and Internet broadband to enable participation in video sessions;

• Have access to a mobile device, e.g. a smartphone or a tablet. Can be the same as the device above.

Exclusion Criteria - Participants will be excluded from the study if:

• They have a known diagnosis of Intellectual Disability;

• They have a current high level of risk including of self-harm, suicide or current exposure to domestic violence, as assessed by a member of the CAMHS team;

• They are substance dependent.

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Disease
• Domestic Violence
• Narrative Exposure Therapy
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Adolescence
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Children
• Psychological Trauma
• Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
• Stress Disorders, Traumatic
• Trauma, Psychological

Intervention

Other:
• Narrative Exposure Therapy
NET is a trauma-focused psychological treatment for people who experienced multiple traumas (Schaeur et al., 2011). An adaptation named KIDNET was developed for use with children and young people (Neuner et al., 2008; Schauer et al., 2011, 2017). Participants will be offered 6-10 weekly sessions of NET lasting approximately 90 minutes each. The sessions will be delivered by a Trainee Clinical Psychologist via videoconferencing, in line with the UK's Government guidelines around reducing face-to-face contacts during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United Kingdom	Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation NHS Trust - Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services	Lincoln	Lincolnshire
United Kingdom	Nottinghmashire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust - Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services	Nottingham	Nottinghamshire

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Nottingham	Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United Kingdom, 

References & Publications (12)

Elliott, R., Slatick, E., & Urman, M. (2001). Qualitative Change Process Research on Psychotherapy: Alternative Strategies. Psychologische Beitrage, 43(3), 69-111.

Isoaho, P., Kangaslampi, S., & Peltonen, K. (2015). Narratiivisen altistusterapian (NET) vaikutus kognitiivisiin prosesseihin ja mielenterveyteen: Tapaustutkimus = The effect of Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) on cognitive processes and mental health: A case study. Psykologia, 50(5), 355-372. https://proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2015-52491-003&site=ehost-live

Meiser-Stedman R, Smith P, Yule W, Dalgleish T. The Trauma Memory Quality Questionnaire: preliminary development and validation of a measure of trauma memory characteristics for children and adolescents. Memory. 2007 Apr;15(3):271-9. doi: 10.1080/09658210701256498. — View Citation

Neuner F, Catani C, Ruf M, Schauer E, Schauer M, Elbert T. Narrative exposure therapy for the treatment of traumatized children and adolescents (KidNET): from neurocognitive theory to field intervention. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am. 2008 Jul;17(3):641-64, x. doi: 10.1016/j.chc.2008.03.001. — View Citation

Parsonson, B. S., & Baer, D. M. (1986). The graphic analysis of data. In J. S. Bailey & M. R. Burch (Eds.), Research methods in applied behavior analysis (pp. 157-186). Springer.

Peltonen K, Kangaslampi S. Treating children and adolescents with multiple traumas: a randomized clinical trial of narrative exposure therapy. Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2019 Jan 17;10(1):1558708. doi: 10.1080/20008198.2018.1558708. eCollection 2019. — View Citation

Perrin, S., Meiser-Stedman, R., & Smith, P. (2005). The Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES): Validity as a screening instrument for PTSD. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 33(4), 487-498.

Schafer SK, Ihmig FR, Lara H KA, Neurohr F, Kiefer S, Staginnus M, Lass-Hennemann J, Michael T. Effects of heart rate variability biofeedback during exposure to fear-provoking stimuli within spider-fearful individuals: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2018 Mar 16;19(1):184. doi: 10.1186/s13063-018-2554-2. — View Citation

Schauer, M., Neuner, F., & Elbert, T. (2011). Narrative exposure therapy: A short-term treatment for traumatic stress disorders (2nd rev. and expanded ed.). Hogrefe Publishing.

Schauer, M., Neuner, F., & Elbert, T. (2017). Narrative Exposure Therapy for Children and Adolescents (KIDNET). In M. A. Landolt, M. Cloitre, & U. Schnyder (Eds.), Evidence-Based Treatments for Trauma Related Disorders in Children and Adolescents (pp. 227-250). Springer.

Twigg E, Cooper M, Evans C, Freire E, Mellor-Clark J, McInnes B, Barkham M. Acceptability, reliability, referential distributions and sensitivity to change in the Young Person's Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (YP-CORE) outcome measure: replication and refinement. Child Adolesc Ment Health. 2016 May;21(2):115-123. doi: 10.1111/camh.12128. Epub 2015 Nov 3. — View Citation

Twigg, E., Barkham, M., Bewick, B. M., Mulhern, B., Connell, J., & Cooper, M. (2009). The Young Person's CORE: Development of a brief outcome measure for young people. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 9(3), 160-168.

* Note: There are 12 references in all — Click here to view all references

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Process measure of habituation: Heart Rate (HR) wristband monitor	HR monitors have been recommended for use as a proxy measure of physiological arousal (Schäfer et al., 2018). In the proposed study, changes in HR will be used to measure: a) within-session habituation (WSH) before and after exposure to traumatic narratives; b) and between-session habituation (BSH) as the narration progresses. Commercially available monitors include chest straps and wristbands; the latter type was deemed less invasive for participants and thus chosen for this study. Huawei Band 4 Pro is an example of a wearable activity tracker that includes a continuous heart rate monitor function. The product can be connected with the manufacturer's app (Huawei Health) installed on an Android or IOS mobile device.	For approximately 10 weeks
Other	Process measure of integration of trauma memories: Trauma Memory Quality Questionnaire (TMQQ; Meiser-Stedman et al. 2007)	The TMQQ is an 11-item self-report questionnaire designed to assess the problematic characteristics of traumatic memories resulting from a lack of autobiographical integration (e.g. fragmentation, sensory/visual rather than verbal quality etc.) in children and young people. The young person rates the item on a 4-point scale (1 = "Don't agree at all", 2 = "Don't agree a bit", 3 = "Agree a bit", 4 = "Completely agree") how well the statements reflect their trauma memories. Higher scores are indicative of more problematic and less integrated memories. The scale has been previously employed to measure the impact of NET on the quality of traumatic memories (Peltonen & Kangaslampi, 2019; Isoaho et al., 2015).	Approximately 10 weeks
Other	Change interviews	The feasibility and acceptability of video NET will be investigated by conducting Change Interviews with the young people approximately one month after completing the treatment. In this instance, the young people will also be asked to provide feedback on their experience of receiving treatment via videoconferencing, including in terms of barriers and fascinators to engagement. The interviews will be conducted by an external researcher, i.e. another Trainee Clinical Psychologist, following an adaptation of Elliott, Slatick, & Urman's (2001) protocol. The interviews will be audio- or video-recorded and then sent to the student/investigator for transcription and analysis.	At 1-month follow-up
Primary	Change in PTS symptoms between the baseline, NET intervention, and 1-month follow-up phases - as assessed by the Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES-13; Perrin et al., 2005)	The CRIES is a brief self-report questionnaire assessing PTS in children and young people aged 8-18. The original version of the scale (CRIES-8) includes 8 items evaluating intrusion and avoidance symptoms; a longer version (CRIES-13) comprising 5 additional items was developed to include the assessment of hyperarousal symptoms. The young person completing the scale is asked to rate each item depending on how frequently they experienced the symptom in the past week on a four-point scale . Although the CRIES is not a diagnostic instrument, higher scores suggest higher levels of PTS and likely clinical caseness. The scale has demonstrated good face and construct validity and has been used to screen and capture symptom change in children exposed to a variety of traumatic events (Perrin et al., 2005; Smith et al., 2003).	Throughout the study, for approximately 18 weeks
Secondary	Change in pyschological distress and functioning between the baseline, NET intervention, and 1-month follow-up phases - as assessed by the Young Person's Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (YP-CORE; Twigg et al., 2009)	The YP-CORE has been adapted from the CORE-10 for use with children and young people between 11 and 16 years. The scale is a session-by-session monitoring tool comprising items assessing anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, physical problems, functioning and risk to self. The YP-CORE includes six high severity items and four low severity items. When completing the YP-CORE, the young person rates the 10 items based on how often they experienced each problem over the past week (0 = "Not at all", 1 = "Only occasionally", 2 = "Sometimes", 3 = "Often", 4 = "Most or all of the time"). Previous studies have demonstrated the scale's reliability, validity and sensitivity to change (Twigg et al., 2009; Twigg et al., 2016).	Throughout the study, for approximately 18 weeks