The effectiveness of trauma-informed wilderness therapy with adolescents: A pilot study.

Abstract

Objective: Wilderness therapy (WT) is a complementary/integrative approach for treating struggling adolescents by using outdoor adventure activities to foster personal and interpersonal growth/well-being. Empirical support for the effectiveness of traditional WT is growing, but evidence supporting trauma-informed WT (TIWT) is lacking. This pilot study addresses that gap. Method: Between 2009 and 2019, 816 adolescents (Ages 13-17, Mage = 15.36, SD = 1.25; 41.1% female) completed the Youth-Outcome Questionnaire-SR 2.0 at intake and discharge (M = 75.02 days, SD = 28.77). Three-hundred seventy-eight adolescents also completed the Family Assessment Device-General Functioning (FAD-GF), and 253 adolescents completed two, 2.5-min segments of heart-rate-variability biofeedback (one while resting and one while using a coping skill). One-hundred eighty-nine caregivers completed the Youth-Outcome Questionnaire 2.01, and 181 caregivers completed the FAD-GF. Between 25 and 99 adolescents and caregivers also completed psychological and family measures at 6 months and 1 year postdischarge. Results: Adolescents reported experiencing improvements in psychological and family functioning. They also exhibited improvement in psychophysiological functioning (heart-rhythm coherence). Caregivers reported improvements in family functioning and their child's psychological functioning. Caregivers observed more persisting benefits in their child's psychological functioning, whereas adolescents reported more persisting benefits in family functioning. Changes in psychological and family functioning were related. There were very few differential effects on the basis of demographic factors, trauma exposure, or past and current treatment factors. Conclusion: Results of this pilot study suggest TIWT is a promising complementary/integrative intervention for improving the psychological, family, and psychophysiological functioning of struggling adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).