The question nagged Katherine Houck, MSSW ‘98, a trauma social worker at University Medical Center Brackenridge in Austin. She noticed that many patients hospitalized for severe trauma (due to a car accident, for instance) developed post-traumatic stress symptoms such as flashbacks and nightmares.
To answer the question, last year Houck put together a research team that is screening all Brackenridge trauma patients for post-traumatic stress symptoms, and assessing them for PTSD at six and twelve weeks. The team included master’s students Meghan Graham and Natalie Peterson. Up until this past summer, they screened patients, delivered a short bedside intervention, and made follow-up calls. So far, the team has found that almost 35 percent of patients had at least one post-traumatic stress symptom during hospitalization. During follow-up at six weeks, 40 percent of participants presenting with one symptom met PTSD criteria, and 72 percent of those presenting with two symptoms met PTSD criteria.
