Youth, Poverty, And Interpersonal Violence: A Recipe For Ptsd

Substantial efforts have focused on physical rehabilitation to help speed the recovery process post-trauma. Despite intensive physical therapy, many trauma patients never return to their pre-injury status. This finding suggests there are various psychosocial factors playing a substantial role in the recovery of these patients. Several studies have found that trauma patients suffer from significant mental health–related issues, especially post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), after their traumatic event.1 PTSD has been shown to decrease quality of life, with many patients unable to hold jobs and maintain personal relationships after a major trauma. These patients are at high risk of substance abuse, suicide, and psychological disturbances, and are more likely to suffer from chronic pain.2 Trauma patients with PTSD have worse functional outcomes and increased social disintegration, contributing to substantial healthcare, economic, and personal costs.1 Thus, identifying and treating PTSD early has the potential to mitigate the negative impact of the disease by improving quality of life coupled with decreasing the socioeconomic cost to both the patient and society. We hypothesized that specific factors related to the patient and their trauma would be predictive of PTSD. The purpose of this study was to identify PTSD in patients post-injury and determine which risk factors could predict its subsequent development.\n\n### Identification of patients\n\nA prospective quality improvement project was undertaken in response to previous work performed at our institution. Consecutive patients admitted to the trauma service for \u003e48 hours with planned follow-up in the outpatient trauma clinic between August 2019 and January 2020 were eligible for participation in the study and offered the opportunity for inclusion. Data were collected following introduction of a discharge information form and discharge teaching. Using a detailed five-question survey at their first follow-up visit post-discharge, patients were screened prospectively for PTSD. Only those patients completing all five questions comprising the …