Use of the emotional Stroop to assess psychological trauma following traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Primary objective: A modified Stroop task was used to investigate the hypothesis that implicit memory may be a possible mechanism for the development of acute stress disorder (ASD) in patients who have suffered a closed head injury.Research design: Three groups of hospital patients were compared within 1 month post-trauma: road traffic accident (RTA) patients with a brain injury (n= 15), RTA patients without a brain injury (n= 13) and a control group of orthopaedic and plastics patients (n= 15).Methods and procedures: Participants named colours of five types of words: RTA-related words, words related to hospitalization, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) words, positive words and neutral words. Participants were also administered the Acute Stress Disorder Interview and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.Main outcomes and results: Both RTA patients with and without a brain injury demonstrated significant interference on words related to an RTA. Significant interference was unexpectedly observed for OCD words in RTA patients. Control patients did not display significant interference effects.Conclusions: Findings suggested that patients, both with and without explicit recall for an RTA, responded similarly on a task involving implicit memory for trauma. Possible implications for ASD and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder are discussed.