One-day ASSYST group intervention to victims of flood in Bulgaria

Objective To assess the effectiveness of the Acute Stress Syndrome Stabilization (ASSYST) Treatment Intervention in a group format (ASSYST-G) with Bulgarian participants from a flooded region. The ASSYST-G treatment intervention, authored by Dr. Ignacio Jarero (Mexico), contains the core components (most therapeutically active) of the EMDR- Integrative Group Treatment Protocol for Ongoing Traumatic Stress (EMDR-IGTP-OTS) (Jarero & Artigas, 2018; Jarero et al., 2018; Osorio et al. ,2018). Method A pre-post repeated measures study was conducted with 24 participants of an average age of 63.38 years. Primary outcome measures included the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) Short Form (Zuromski et al., 2019) and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) (Aitken, 1969). They were administered at baseline (pre-treatment), and post-treatment at one week, and follow-up at three and six weeks. Results Repeated measures ANOVA (One-way ANOVA) results indicated a clinically significant reduction of PTSD symptoms, measured by the PCL-5 Short Form: Wilks' Lambda .419, F (3,15) = 6.92, p = .004, multivariate partial eta squared = .581, observed power (alpha 0.05) = .932. Results also indicated a clinically significant reduction in reported flood-related distress, measured by VAS: Wilks' Lambda .206, F (3,15) = 19.22, p < .001, multivariate partial eta squared = .794, observed power (alpha 0.05) = 1.000 Conclusions and Recommendations The findings on the ASSYST-G treatment intervention in the Bulgarian context indicate that the intervention effectively reduced PTSD symptomatology in Bulgarian participants from a flooded region. We recommend future research using a Randomized Controlled Trial design and exploring ways to optimise treatment delivery after natural disasters.

Journal

English

Ivanka Miteva

Ivanka, M. (2025). A one-day ASSYST group treatment intervention to victims of flood in Bulgaria. Psychology and Behavioral Science International Journal, 23(1), 0. doi:10.19080/pbsij.2025.23.556105