Helping Women From War-Torn Countries Cope With Sexual Violence

Helping Women From War-Torn Countries Cope With Sexual Violence

In clash-ridden countries around the world, defilement and other forms of sexual rage are being used as weapons of declared hostilities. In these settings, treatment services on this account that victims are limited. A trial led the agency of researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health examined an evidence-based group psychotherapy treatment because of sexual violence survivors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). According to the study, this clump therapy achieved more dramatic results in reducing symptoms of put in the -office-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and misgiving compared to individual support services. The results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Survivors of sexual injury have high rates of depression, vexation and post-traumatic stress symptoms," related Judith K. Bass, PhD, MPH, lead author of the study and aider professor with the Bloomberg School's Department of Mental Health. "We apprehend what works for treating these victims in developed countries, if it were not that very little has been done to lead what treatments can help women in arbitrament of the sword-torn, resource-poor settings."

Eastern DRC, in which place the trial was conducted, has able conflict for more than 20 years. A recent study showed that 40 percent of the women - 2 uncovered of every 5 women - had able rape. For the Johns Hopkins criterion, researchers worked with the International Rescue Committee and local psychosocial workers to provide sexual rape survivors with either individual support or Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), which consisted of 1 individual session and 11 collection sessions. The psychosocial CPT providers were skilled and supervised by collaborators at the University of Washington. Treatment was randomly assigned transversely 16 villages. All participants were screened on the side of symptoms of PTSD, depression and foreboding.

While the researchers observed reduced symptoms of PTSD, debasement and anxiety among women in the couple the individual-support and CPT participants, the results were significantly greater degree dramatic among CPT participants. Six months later than treatment, only 9 percent of women in the CPT class met criteria for probable PTSD, gloominess or anxiety compared to 42 percent of women in the individual-befriend condition.

"We saw women, who had formerly felt too stigmatized to be a character of their community, re-engage subsequent to receiving CPT and they expressed that they felt they could once more be productive members of their families and communities." said Bass.