Transportation-related collisions are ubiquitous and often traumatic. Identifying post-collision psychological distress and the characteristics of the collision survivor that lead to distress are vital to the development of early and appropriate interventions. The goals of this study were: 1) to use a questionnaire as opposed to a typical diagnostic interview, 2) to confirm that psychological distress is present in currently hospitalized transportation-related collision survivors, 3) to confirm that different types of distress co-occur, 4) to determine if distress is more likely to occur in those who have had prior distress, and 5) to explore the relationship between symptoms of distress and perception of control by self, others, and God/Higher Power of past, present, and future collision-related events. Subjects were 100 English speaking adult inpatients, 16 years and older, who were less than 3 weeks post-injury, and receiving some rehabilitation. Participants completed a questionnaire which included the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS) as well as questions regarding demographics, details of the collision/injury, alcohol/drug use, pain, past and present stressors, social support, and perceptions of life change. Information about head injury and collision-concurrent alcohol and/or drug use was collected from the patient's medical chart. Compared to other traumatic experiences (e.g., physical/sexual abuse, war combat), transportation-related collisions share the characteristics of being sudden, unexpected, relatively brief in duration, and potentially lethal. Prior studies used diagnostic interviews to identify psychological distress in post hospitalized collision survivors. This study used questionnaire-based depression, anxiety, and trauma symptom inventories in a currently hospitalized sample and included head injured patients. As hypothesized there was a significant correlation between the CES-D total score and the BAI total score [Hypothesis 1], the DTS total score [Hypothesis 2], and collision concurrent alcohol and/or drug use (as indicated by medical chart records or score on the CAGE) [Hypothesis 3]. Further, there was a significant correlation between the patient's self-reported history of depression, anxiety, or stress reaction and CES-D, BAI, and DTS total scores, respectively [Hypothesis 4]. Also as hypothesized, perceived personal control of the past "events that caused the collision" was significantly correlated with the CES-D total score [Hypothesis 5] while perceived control of the present "life in general right now" was negatively correlated to the CES-D total score [Hypothesis 6]. Contrary to hypothesis, perceived control of the present "recovery process right now" was not correlated to the CES-D total score [Hypothesis 6] nor was perceived control of the future "preventing a collision like this from happening...again" [Hypothesis 7]. Perception of control by "others" of the present "recovery process right now" was negatively correlated to the CES-D total score. Results support the theory that perceived personal control of past traumatic events increases the likelihood of psychological distress. Some evidence of post traumatic growth was found.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc4000 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Biggs, Quinn M. |
| Contributors | Kelly, Kimberly S., Clark, Sharon, Critelli, Joseph W., Guarnaccia, Charles A. |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | Text |
| Rights | Public, Copyright, Biggs, Quinn M., Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. |
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