Traumatic Life Events Prior to Alcohol-Related Admission of Injured Acute Care Inpatients: A Brief Report

Abstract

Objective: Approximately 30 million Americans present to acute care medical settings annually after incurring traumatic injuries. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms are endemic among injury survivors. Our article is a replication and extension of a previous report documenting a pattern of multiple traumatic life events across patients admitted to Level I trauma centers for an alcohol-related injury. Method: This study is a secondary analysis of a nationwide 20-site randomized trial of an alcohol brief intervention with 660 traumatically injured inpatients. Pre-injury trauma history was assessed using the National Comorbidity Survey trauma history screen at the six-month time point. Results: Most common traumatic events experienced by our population of alcohol-positive trauma survivors were having had someone close unexpectedly die, followed by having seen someone badly beaten or injured. Of particular note, there is high reported prevalence of rape/sexual assault, and childhood abuse and neglect among physically injured trauma survivors. Additional trauma histories are increasingly common among alcohol-positive patients admitted for a traumatic injury. Conclusions: Due to the high rate of experienced multiple traumatic events among acutely injured inpatients, the trauma history screen could be productively integrated into screening and brief intervention procedures developed for acute care settings.