Treatment
Procedure and scope:
Participation in the study not only enables patients to receive a structured and comprehensive diagnosis of psychological stress, but also provides you with improved care and brief psychosomatic treatment from your trusted GP. General practitioners can also contact us if they observe patients with mental stress in their patient base and want to provide better support and treatment.
In an initial preliminary telephone consultation, we clarify the individual participation criteria and the suitability of the treatment offered and required. The next step is a comprehensive initial examination and standardized diagnostics. If the inclusion criteria are also met here, your family doctor will be contacted by our study team in order to participate in the study with you and carry out further care.
A computer program will then randomly assign you to one of 2 forms of treatment: improved standard care according to current treatment recommendations or trauma-focused brief therapy (NET). In both cases, you will have 3 appointments with your GP, during which your psychological stress caused by your stay in intensive care and other events will be discussed. You can find out more about NET treatment in the section below.
Following the 3 sessions, you will be contacted again by telephone by the study team to record your long-term treatment success after 6 and 12 months. Participation in a scientific study is always voluntary and can be terminated at any time at your request.
Narrative exposure therapy (NET):
...was developed by psychotherapists at the University of Constance as a trauma therapy and shortened and adapted for use by GPs. This brief GP intervention does not replace full-fledged trauma therapy, but offers a treatment approach that may already be sufficient for milder stresses or can act as a bridge until psychotherapy begins. It includes
- Standardized examination of mental stress
- Clarification of the clinical picture
- Classification of formative events along the lifeline
- Structured retelling of the stressful experiences
The integration of memories into the situation at the time and the past has been proven to reduce psychological and emotional stress. Memory contents that could not be linked during the trauma situation are subsequently connected through the retelling.
Your family doctor will be trained by us and will conduct 3 sessions (approx. 45 minutes each) with you within 2 months. Accompanying short telephone visits (every 2-3 weeks) record the development of your stress symptoms and increase the safety of the therapy.
