Adolescent Experience With Traumatic Injury and Orthopaedic External Fixation

Abstract

More than 13 million adolescents sustain traumatic injuries yearly, resulting in functional disability, disfigurement, psychosocial problems, and fractures that are increasingly treated with orthopaedic external fixation devices. Little is known about the experiences of injured adolescents. This longitudinal, qualitative descriptive study described the experiences of traumatically injured adolescents treated with external fixation devices. Analysis of data from 26 open-ended, semistructured interviews with 5 male and 4 female adolescents revealed a struggle to return "to their old self" only to recognize that they were "forever changed." Major themes included what risk? (circumstances leading to the traumatic event), processing the event, suck it up and deal with it (strategies), space-age robot, and they'll do it themselves (pin care self-management). Their experiences affected all tasks of adolescence: independence from parents, accepting body image, peer relations, and forming an identity. Findings related to the use of self-administered analgesics, information technology, recall of detail, and gender differences in coping may lead to future interventions and lay the groundwork for future studies that may improve care of adolescents during acute recovery from traumatic injury.