Many teens who suffer a traumatic injury subsequently develop mental health problems, but few see a doctor or other health care professionals who can identify these problems. If a child shows evidence of emotional distress after injury - anxiety, poor sleep, signs of depression - a parent should initiate a call to the family doctor or call a school counsellor. Just making that call to the school counsellor could be very helpful to the child. Researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, looked at 105 adolescents who had been admitted to a level 1 trauma center for treatment. Four to six months after their injury, 30 percent of adolescents had high levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms, 11 percent had high levels of depressive symptoms, and 17 percent reported high levels of alcohol use. Just 40 percent of the injured teens had a source of regular medical care, and only about 25 percent visited a primary care doctor in the six months after their injury. Even then, none of the physicians identified new emotional or drinking problems in these post-injury visits. There are two possible places were kids could be screened post-injury for any emotional problems; at school, or at the acute or surgical care follow-up visit after surgery. Usually, post-injury emotional problems improve with time. But brief professional interventions early on - for example, a few sessions with a counsellor - can be very helpful for kids with high levels of distress.
Pediatrics,
January 2006