A study of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in poly-trauma patients

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityIntroduction: A paucity of research has been performed to understand the prevalence and predictors of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in patients who have experienced multiple blunt forced traumas. These two disorders are very debilitating for the patients who are affected, thus it is important to understand who may be at greatest risk and what factors predict poor outcomes in order to design interventions aimed at decreasing the negative psychological consequence of traumatic injury. Aims and Hypotheses: Our goals are to examine if there is a relationship between gender and the prevalence of depression, if an open fracture leads to an increased prevalence of depression, and if there is a link between a patient’s length of stay in the hospital and depression. In regards to PTSD we wanted to investigate if there was a significant relationship between gender and PTSD, and if there was a strong relationship between a patient’s past trauma and an increased risk of developing PTSD after subsequent trauma.. We believed that women would have a higher prevalence of depression and PTSD. We also expected that patients with open fractures, and patients with longer stays in the hospital, would all have a higher prevalence of depression. We also hypothesized that patients with past traumas would have a higher prevalence of PTSD. [TRUNCATED