Impact of traumatic events on patients with physical injuries

by Tse, Yuen-kwan

(Uncorrected OCR) Abstract fliis study sought to (a) explore die impact of traumatic accidents, and to (b) examine die applicability of die Impact of hvent Scale- Revised (Weiss & Mannar, 1997) for assessing traumatic stress in Hong Kong Chinese with accidental injury. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 Chinese adults (aged 1 8 to d5 years) recruited from a general hospital's emergency room within two weeks of hospital admission. Theoretical frameworks that arc widely accepted in die areas of traumatic stress (Horowitz, el al.. 1979; Weiss & .Mannar. 1997), coping (I'olkman & Lazarus. 1991). and posttraumatic growth (Calhoun & Tcdcschi, 1999) were adopted in this study for content analysis of the qualitative data. Results showed that the majority oi~ participants (90%) indicated both stress responses and coping efforts in connection with the traumatic accidents and concomitant consequences. A small proportion of the participants (25%) revealed signs of posttraumatic growth, together with stress responses. Results also provided preliminary support for the applicability of the Impact of'l'vent Scale Revised for assessing traumatic stress arising from accidental injury in the I long Kong context. Implications ol'lhc current findings on remedial clinical work for people with accidental injuries were discussed.