Intervento EMDR di gruppo per la riduzione dello stress percepito in genitori con figli disabili: studio di efficacia

Severe disabilities in children can cause high levels of stress within families and scientific literature reports a few studies about using EMDR group interventions for reducing parents/caregiver’s stress. This research, based on a pre-post study design, aims to verify a) the effectiveness of the EMDR-IGTP in reducing perceived stress and b) to demonstrate the effectiveness of EMDR-IGPT in reducing some psychopathologic caregivers’ symptoms. The participants consisted of 15 parents with severely disabled children who underwent 10 sessions of 90 – 100 min each, on a fortnightly basis, administered by two trained EMDR therapists with a specific training in this protocol and a health professional educator. Before starting the first session, the PSS (Stress Perception Scale) and the SCL-90 (Symptoms Checklist-90) were administered, with respect of the anonymity, by the same two trained therapist who conducted the 10 sessions. At the end of the 10 sessions, seven days post-treatment, the same scales were administered along with a satisfaction questionnaire. The results demonstrated an important improvement of the caregivers’ stress, and a significant decrease of the parents’ worries as emerged from the anonymous satisfaction questionnaire.