GBV, Primary Trauma & Trauma Resilience & Understanding Self-help Therapy Utilization in Uganda

Overview

The goal of this community-based interventional study was to determine the effectiveness of the 'Trauma Resilience \& Understanding Self-help Therapy' (TRUST) in managing domestic violence \& primary trauma among formerly Internally Displaced Persons (fIDPs) in northern Uganda. The main questions it aimed to answer were: * What was the level of utilization and short-term effects of the TRUST intervention on the experiences of domestic violence and high levels of primary trauma among fIDPs living in northern Uganda who would have been using TRUST within their communities after completing the training in the community-based TRUST utilization? * What were the clinical indications of the TRUST intervention and psychological operators among fIDPs living in northern Uganda who would have been using TRUST within their communities to manage their experiences of domestic violence and high levels of primary trauma? Participants found to have experienced domestic violence in the last one year and were having high levels of primary trauma were randomly assigned to the intervention group that was trained in the utilization of the TRUST within their communities and then followed up for 12 weeks (TRUST group). The investigators then compared the results obtained from the TRUST group with those attained from an age and gender cross-matched control group of fIDPs who were not trained in the utilization of the TRUST within their communities (Control group). This was done to see if the community-based utilization of the TRUST intervention changed the levels of primary trauma \& experiences of domestic violence among its users (TRUST group) when compared to the non-users (Control group).

An indigenous rebel outfit waged a decades' civil war in eastern and northern Uganda until the early 2000s. This rebellion resulted in forceful internal displacement of most of the local population leading to unwarranted misery. In the aftermath of this rebellion, the internally displaced returned to their areas of origin. However, a significant proportion of these formerly internally displaced persons (fIDPs) have since then been plagued with a plethora of adversities including high levels of primary trauma, frequent experiences of domestic violence and impaired social economic resilience (SER) levels. A newly developed psychosocial therapeutic intervention called the 'trauma resilience \& understanding self-help therapy' (TRUST) was revealed to be qualitatively effective in managing high levels of primary trauma, experiences of domestic violence and poor SER levels among refugees and fIDPs. However, the quantitative effectiveness of TRUST and the psychological operators among the fIDPs and refugees within which it is grounded still remain a scientific mystery. Hence, an appropriate prospective community-based cohort research study was conducted to this effect. The investigators carried out a descriptive community-based prospective study from November 2022 to March 2023 among 284 randomly recruited adults who were fIDPs living in northern Uganda using quantitative data collection techniques in natural experiments conducted via repeated assessments. The resultant data were analyzed using univariate, bivariate and multivariate linear, logistic and Poisson regression as well as determining the effect sizes of the community-based utilization of TRUST on the high levels of primary trauma, experiences of domestic violence and poor SER levels among fIDPs living in northern Uganda. These findings were compared with those obtained among a randomly selected control group of fIDPs living in northern Uganda who were cross-matched according to their age and gender, were experiencing high levels of primary trauma and domestic violence as well as poor SER levels and had not been trained in the community-based utilization of TRUST.