Authors

• Turja, Tuuli (University of Tampere)

Keywords

accidents, injuries, medical care, pain, pain control, post-traumatic stress disorder, social support, symptoms

Abstract

The survey studied trauma symptoms and psychosocial support received after accidents in Finland. Main themes pertained to the accident situation, injuries suffered, treatment and support received, and persisting trauma symptoms. The Impact of Event Scale -Revised (IES-R) was used to score post-traumatic stress disorder.

The initial questions investigated severe pain experienced by the respondent due to a traffic accident or other accident, hospital care received, the respondent's age at the time of the trauma, and how many of individuals involved had needed hospital care. Further questions charted how much pain, helplessness, fear or shame the respondents had experienced at the time of the accident, whether they had feared losing their mobility or other functionality, how many times they had re-experienced the same pain, the extent to which their life had been threatened, and the extent to which medication or other treatment had removed the pain.

The IES-R was used to present questions on the occurrence of intrusive thoughts about the accident, avoidance of stimuli associated with it, feelings of watchfulness and anger, physical symptoms caused by reminders of the accident, and signs of heightened irritability, sleep disorders, emotional numbing or lack of concentration.

Psychosocial support received was studied with questions relating to discussions with others, peer support, crisis support or therapy received, sufficiency of information from medical staff, and psychological support from people close to the respondent. The respondents were also asked whether they felt that only individuals with same experiences can understand their pain and how easy it was for them to talk about the issue to people close to them. Frequency of meeting friends, relatives or colleagues outside office hours was investigated.

Background variables included the respondent's gender, age, economic activity, household composition and general happiness.