Illinois Injury Law Blog

A recent study conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, looked at parents whose children had been hospitalized due to injuries suffered in traffic accidents. According to the study, 37% of those parents were themselves suffering from “acute stress disorder” a month after their child’s injury, and 15% of them had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that lasted even longer than six months.

The study highlights the need to address every family member’s reaction to the emotional aftermath following an injury to a child. In their effort to help the child recover, the parents might otherwise ignore their own symptoms, or miss warning signs from the child’s siblings, who may not be physically injured but may still need help in getting past their fears.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has created a website designed to help families deal with a child’s recovery from an injury. www.aftertheinjury.org offers various tips and resources, including advice on when parents should seek professional help in dealing with their own anxiety. If parents feel that they are thinking too much about the child’s injury; or, in contrast, are avoiding talking about the injury or being in the area where the injury took place; or find themselves generally anxious about other things, and these worries and actions interfere with their normal activities or last longer than one month, the website encourages parents to get professional help.

Following a car accident, some injuries are fairly easy to assess and treat; as this study shows, however, the resulting emotional injures may be diffused through an entire family and may last far longer than the physical damage.