The effect of dance movement therapy on traumatized refugee women – a clinical controlled trial

Abstract Background Women worldwide are fleeing war, persecution and violence. Typically, they experienced multiple traumata in the home country, on the way, and in the host country. In Germany, less than 10% of the refugees in need receive mental health treatment. Dance movement therapy (DMT) was tested as a treatment option for traumatized refugee women regarding its potential to reduce symptoms of trauma, stress, depression and anxiety. Methods In a controlled within-group design, N = 24 traumatized refugee women from six countries, dwelling in communities of Southern Germany, were tested at baseline (t1), pretest (t2), and posttest (t3), with an exploratory follow-up ( N = 10) on symptoms of trauma, stress, depression and anxiety. We employed the RHS-15 as the primary outcome measure, and the DASS21 and PCL-S as secondary measures. Scales were administered in an interview format in the participants’ native or a well-spoken language. After an initial 8-week waiting period, the intervention—integrating participants’ emotionally meaningful music and their own dance improvisations—was conducted in 8 weekly group sessions of 1.5 h. In the study period, no woman had any other psychotherapy. Results were analyzed with Greebhouse-Geisser corrected F-tests and with t-tests for related samples. Results Results suggest that (a) the trauma symptoms of all women were clinically relevant at baseline, that (b) all symptoms remained unchanged after the waiting period, and that (c) symptoms of trauma, stress, depression, and anxiety dropped significantly after the DMT intervention; in the case of trauma (PCL-S) so markedly that they fell under the clinical cutoff value. The exploratory follow-up suggests that effects carry on after eight weeks, but not after one year. Limitations of the study are the use of a within-group design, and a relatively small, yet fully powered, sample. Conclusions The refugee women in this study experienced a pronounced symptom reduction regarding trauma, stress, depression, and anxiety after an 8-week DMT intervention. Based on this preliminary evidence, DMT seems to be a promising low-threshold and cost-effective therapy approach that can improve the mental health and wellbeing of refugee women of diverse cultural backgrounds suffering from PTSD symptoms. The lack of high-quality studies with proper control conditions and follow-ups points to the need for future research with more rigorous methodologies. Trial registration OSF clinical trial registration (retrospectively registered at Center for Open Science on 27/03/2023). https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EG7SD .