Early posttraumatic stress symptoms and levels of distress in trauma patients treated in the resuscitation room: an exploratory study

BACKGROUND: The aim of the present study was to investigate the incidence of psychological distress and posttraumatic stress symptoms in trauma patients who have been recruited from the resuscitation room. Further, we wanted to explore risk factors for posttraumatic stress symptoms, taking different accident types into account. METHODS: Our sample consisted of 45 patients who have been treated in the resuscitation room and were interviewed within the first ten days after treatment. Type of accident, third party fault, previous mental health problems and pretraumatic stress were examined. Patients were interviewed with respect to their currently felt distress regarding the accident. Posttraumatic stress symptoms were measured with the German version of the Impact of Event Scale. Injury severity was assessed by means of the Injury Severity Score. RESULTS: Our exploratory and cross-sectional project reveals that more severe injuries were associated with higher distress. However, posttraumatic stress symptoms were predicted by high distress and being involved in a car accident, but not by injury severity. CONCLUSIONS: We identified two potential risk factors for the development of posttraumatic stress in trauma patients recruited from the resuscitation room: Being involved in a car accident and high distress. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The project has been registered at the Study Center of Mental Disorders (SPE) at the University Medical Center Mainz (No: 92072014).