Pediatric Nurses Help Prevent Post-Traumatic Stress

A new study confirms that pediatric nurses play a key role in preventing post-traumatic stress in injured children and their families by practicing trauma-informed care.

Researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP; PA, USA) and Hershey Children's Hospital (Hershey, PA, USA) conducted a survey among 232 nurses across five level I or II pediatric trauma centers to investigate knowledge, opinions, self-rated competence, and current practice with regard to trauma-informed nursing care. The results revealed that more than 90% of the nurses recognized the importance of attending to psychosocial needs as part of trauma nursing care, and 75%–80% report that they encourage parents to turn to family and friends to help manage and support a child's pain and anxiety during procedures.

The results of survey also revealed that the majority of the nurses surveyed considered themselves moderately competent in a range of relevant skills; however, far fewer nurses reported having directly assessing a child or parent's distress, or provided specific instructions on how to cope with difficult or painful experiences. The authors suggest, therefore, that efforts to improve trauma-informed pediatric nursing care should highlight specific skills related to helping patients and their parents manage emotional responses to difficult medical experiences. The study was published in the January 2015 issue of the Journal of Pediatric Nursing.

“When a child is hospitalized for an injury, nurses play a key role not only in medical care, but also in helping families cope and fully recover emotionally,” said lead author Nancy Kassam-Adams, PhD, director of the Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress at CHOP. “Taken together with other recent studies that found only one in five trauma centers routinely screen child and youth for traumatic stress responses, these results help to identify gaps in current practice and point to possible policy and training needs.”

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may develop after exposure to one or more traumatic events, and may manifest itself as group of symptoms, such as disturbing recurring flashbacks, avoidance or numbing of memories of the event, and hyper-arousal, continuing for more than a month after the occurrence of the traumatic event. The rate of PTSD may be lower in children than adults, but in the absence of therapy, symptoms may continue for decades. One estimate suggests that the proportion of children and adolescents having PTSD in a non-war-torn population in a developed country may be 1% compared to 1.5% to 3% of adults, and much lower below the age of 10 years.

Related Links:
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Hershey Children's Hospital