This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Children with high and low energy trauma may suffer from PTSD

Issue: November 2011

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Meagan Wallace

SAN ANTONIO — Children who sustain either high- or low-energy traumatic injuries may develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study presented by Meagan Wallace, MD at the 2011 Annual Meeting Orthopaedic Trauma Association.

“The purpose of our study was to evaluate high-energy pediatric trauma patients to determine prevalence of [post-traumatic stress disorder] PTSD compared to children who sustained an isolated low-energy upper extremity frature treated non-operatively,” Wallace said during her presentation here.

The investigators hypothesized that children with high-energy injuries would have significantly higher rates of PTSD than those with low-energy injuries and that parents’ stress would be related to PTSD in their children.

Traumatic injuries

Wallace and colleagues prospectively studied 76 children, including 56 boys and 20 girls, between 8 years and 18 years old, who sustained traumatic injuries or an isolated upper extremity fracture at least 3 months before examination.

“Our exclusion criteria were any child with a pyschological disorder, a traumatic brain injury with a Glasgow Coma Scale ,15 or non-English speaking,” Wallace said.

Of the trauma group, 32 patients had surgery and 10 patients had more than one surgerical procedure. None of the patients in the isolated upper extremity fracture group underwent surgery.

The investigators collected demographic data on the patients’ school and extracurricular activities. They measured outcomes using the Child PTSD Symptom Scale and the Parent Stress Index.

PTSD in 33%

The team found that 33% of the total patients suffered from PTSD, 24% of the trauma group and 9% of the isolated upper extremity fracture group. Parents’ stress was not found to cause PTSD in their children.

“One thing that we did find was that involvement in music was significant in that patients that were involved in music as an extracurricular activity had lower rates of PTSD,” Wallace said.

The study was limited by the small sample size. The researchers plan to conduct a larger prospective study in the future, according to Wallace.

“We need to have a awareness of PTSD and we need to have a high index of suspicion in all pediatric patients regardless of the energy associated with the trauma,” Wallace said.

Reference:

• Wallace M, Puryear A, Cannada LK. A prospective evaluation of post-traumatic stress disorder and parent stress in children exposed to orthopaedic trauma. Paper #67. Presented at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Orthopaedic Trauma Association. Oct. 12-15. San Antonio.

Follow OrthoSuperSite.com on Twitter