Category Archives: Tips & findings

Moving from universal to selective prevention: results of a web-based early intervention for PTSD

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Joanne MouthaanThis is a post by Joanne Mouthaan. As a PhD candidate, Joanne conducted a large prospective longitudinal trial of mental health in traumatic injury patients in Amsterdam. Now in the final stage of her thesis, she is working as a lecturer at the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology of Leiden University, The Netherlands.

Our team’s goal is to gain more insight into a) the incidence and development of mental health problems after injury, b) possible bio/psycho/social factors contributing to these problems, and c) prevention of mental health problems by intervening early. From 2005 to 2010, we recruited approximately 900 patients from two level-1 trauma centers (the Academic Medical Center and the VU University Medical Center). Regarding the issue of prevention, we developed a web-based early psychological intervention called Trauma TIPS, the main subject of this post.

Traumatic injury and PTSD

Around the world, traumatic injury is one of the most common traumatic events, accounting for 9% of global mortality. Because of its high incidence, injuries cause millions of people to experience (temporary or permanent) disabilities on a yearly basis, including mental health problems (see http://www.who.int/topics/injuries/en/). PTSD develops in 10-20% of injury patients. Therefore, prevention of PTSD has been mentioned by some as the holy grail of trauma research. Continue reading →

Can we use Facebook to assess mental health needs after a disaster?

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facebook disaster mental healthImagine: you have just received a request to assess the mental health needs of the survivors of a large-scale disaster. What are your major challenges: Logistics? Resources? Communication? Getting an overview of who is in the area, who has been assessed, and who still needs to be? And if needs are identified, getting the appropriate services in place?

Probably all of the above. In addition, it may be dangerous to enter the disaster area altogether, for example due to radiation risk.

Therefore, wouldn’t it help if you could conduct needs assessments via social networks like Facebook? If these give the same information as face-to-face interviews that you would conduct otherwise, it would be worthwhile as a low-cost-low-risk approach.

A research team from Israel set out to test whether a Facebook sample and a traditional face-to-face sample would show differences in mental health and disaster-related data after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Continue reading →

The role of siblings in children’s mental health

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siblings mental healthWhen you were young(er), did you also engage in personality predictions with your peers based on order in the family? For example, that the oldest of three siblings would be the bossiest and the youngest the most spoiled? Almost everyone (90% of us) have one or more siblings. And we know they play an important role in our lives.

Scientists in the Netherlands have now combined international research examining siblings’ role in children’s mental health. This is an innovative step, since there is quite a lot of research on parenting but not so much on siblings. Moreover, the authors state that the sibling relationship is “one of the most neglected relationships in psychological research and practice.” Also in the child traumatic stress area, I think siblings are still overlooked. Continue reading →

Supporting Children with Cancer: The Cellie Cancer Coping Kit

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Cellie Cancer Coping KitI love it when research gets translated into practice. This guest post by Aimee Hildenbrand, BS & Meghan Marsac, PhD shows a great example. Aimee is a doctoral student at Drexel University and a clinical research assistant at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Meghan is a pediatric psychologist and the center’s Director of Training.

While children with cancer and their families are often resilient, the invasive and painful medical procedures, emotions, and changes to daily life that come with illness can be overwhelming. In fact, children with cancer frequently consider treatment to be more traumatic than cancer itself, underlining the need for comprehensive medical care that incorporates psychosocial services. However, supportive care tools tailored to the experience of childhood cancer and its treatment are limited.

To help address children and caregivers’ need for emotional support during pediatric cancer treatment, our team at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia developed the Cellie Cancer Coping Kit (Cellie Kit). Continue reading →

Can very young children do cognitive-behavioral therapy ?

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CBT for young children“Five key considerations for working with young traumatized children” by Dr. Alex de Young was one of our most popular blogposts last year. We know relatively little of young children’s recovery and of how we can help them. The field is rapidly moving forward however and one of its pioneers, Prof. Michael Scheeringa, has agreed to tell you more about his new CBT approach for very young children. Continue reading →