preprint · medRxiv
Road traffic injuries place severe psychosocial demands on family members who act as informal carers. Research conducted across two trauma centres in Cameroon examined how a task-shifted psychosocial programme, known as the Friendship Bench, affected the quality of life of relatives of injured survivors. Although the intervention was delivered directly to the patients rather than their relatives, twenty-nine family members were assessed before and after six sessions using standard quality of life measurement tools. At baseline, carers reported low scores across physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains. Following the completion of the intervention with the survivors, relatives demonstrated statistically significant improvements across all assessed domains, with medium to large effect sizes. In addition, family relationship type predicted changes in social well-being, with patients' children recording the highest gains.
Road traffic accidents create heavy, often unrecognised emotional and practical burdens for informal family carers in low- and middle-income countries. Demonstrating that patient-focused mental health support generates positive spillover benefits for relatives shows that existing task-shifted programmes can improve broader household well-being without requiring entirely separate, resource-intensive interventions for carers.
The findings support an applied healthcare model tested in real-world trauma centres. Hospital networks, public health authorities, and non-governmental organisations delivering trauma care could adopt the Friendship Bench protocol to simultaneously support patients and their informal care networks. Because the approach relies on task-shifted psychosocial delivery rather than specialist clinicians, it presents a scalable service intervention, though it remains in the clinical research phase prior to broader operational commissioning.
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Abstract Background Road traffic injuries (RTI) -related trauma is associated with heavy psychosocial burdens for family members involved as informal caregivers after the event. Little is known about the quality of life (QoL) experience of family members of RTI survivors in sub-Saharan Africa. This study investigated the QoL outcomes of family members after the administration of the Friendship Bench psychosocial intervention among RTI survivors in Cameroon. Methods A pre-post study design was utilized in two trauma centers in Cameroon. The relatives underwent assessment both at baseline (Session 1) and follow-up sessions (Session 6) using the WHOQOL-BREF tool, without being exposed to any intervention. The domain scores were scaled from 0 to 100. Statistical analysis consisted in paired t-tests/Wilcoxon signed-rank tests along with effect sizes using Cohen’s d. Results The study involved twenty-nine participants. Baseline assessment revealed overall poor quality of life across all domains, with scores in the poor range (Social = 33.33 [IQR: 25.00–47.92]; Environmental = 34.38 [IQR: 25.78–45.31]; Psychological = 45.83 [IQR: 34.38–50.00]; Physical = 46.43 [IQR: 39.29–56.25]). These scores had a statistically significant increases across all domains after the intervention (p < 0.001), accompanied by medium to large effect sizes (Cohen’s d:Social = 1.35; Environmental = 1.57; Psychological = 1.46; Physical = 0.73). The relationship type was found to predict social QoL (F(6,22) = 4.57, p = 0.004), with children of patients demonstrating the greatest gains. Conclusion Family members of RTI survivors showed a significant improvement in QoL during the Friendship Bench intervention. These results highlight the importance of evaluating family member outcomes in task-shifted psychosocial programs in LMICs.
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DOI: 10.64898/2026.08.10.26360156
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