CTDA 1008: Posttraumatic Stress in Children Age 8 to 17 Hospitalized or Seen in the Emergency Department for Unintentional Injury, United States, 2005-2006 (ICPSR 39182)

Version Date: May 27, 2025

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Principal Investigator(s):
Flaura K. Winston, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania; Nancy Kassam-Adams, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania; Meghan L. Marsac, University of Kentucky

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39182.v1

Version V1

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Summary

The objectives of the current study were to describe child post-traumatic stress (PTS), coping behavior, and parent coping assistance following a child's injury. The study enrolled children age 8 to 17 treated at the emergency department or admitted to the hospital for unintentional injury, and one parent per child. Children and parents completed measures of child PTS, coping, and coping assistance at 2 weeks post-injury and 3 months post-injury. The research team addressed these questions:

  1. What types of coping do children use following an injury?
  2. Is parent coping assistance related to child coping behavior?
  3. Are child coping strategies associated with PTS symptoms?
  4. Is early parent coping assistance related to later development of child PTS symptoms?

This study was originally conceived as a prospective randomized trial to evaluate the efficacy of secondary prevention messages conveyed in printed informational materials (handouts and workbooks) for children and parents after pediatric injury. Children and their parents received 1 of 5 randomly assigned workbook sections (each addressing a different key theme). No differences were observed between groups for parent/child knowledge and beliefs about PTS and adaptive coping, nor in child PTS symptoms. Thus, data from all groups have been combined for analyses of prospective PTS outcomes and coping processes.

Citation

Winston, Flaura K., Kassam-Adams, Nancy, and Marsac, Meghan L. CTDA 1008: Posttraumatic Stress in Children Age 8 to 17 Hospitalized or Seen in the Emergency Department for Unintentional Injury, United States, 2005-2006. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-05-27. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39182.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Health and Human Services. Health Resources and Services Administration (H34MC04365), United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R03 HD092720)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Restrictions

Access to these data requires a signed Researcher Application which is available to download as study documentation.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2005 -- 2006

Date of Collection

2005 -- 2006

Data Collection Notes

  1. The project is part of the Child Trauma Data Archives (CTDA). For more information, please visit the CTDA series website and refer to the Collection Notes document under the Data and Documentation tab.

  2. This project is intended to be used in cross-study analysis with other child trauma datasets.

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Study Purpose

The purpose of the study is to examine coping strategies among children following an injury requiring hospital care, coping assistance provided by their parents, and the relationship between coping and post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Study Design

Children were recruited and enrolled shortly after their injury (up to 4 weeks). Both children and parents completed baseline questionnaires on the event and the child's post-traumatic stress (SPS) symptoms. At timepoint 2 (6-12 weeks), participants completed self-report assessments on coping and PTS symptoms in person or by phone. At timepoint 3 (6 months), SPS symptoms were assessed a final time.

Data collection occurred as part of a larger study assessing parents' use of educational materials about recovery following physical injury. As there were no statistically significant differences between parents who used the educational materials and parents who did not, the groups were collapsed for analysis.

Sample

Children and parents were recruited from a large, urban Level I pediatric trauma center. Children were eligible to participate if they had experienced a physical injury, were treated in the hospital, were aged 8 to 17 years old, and were able to complete an English-language questionnaire. Exclusion criteria included injuries resulting from family violence, medical status or cognitive functioning preventing completion of assessments, or no parent being available.

Time Method

Longitudinal

Universe

Children age 8-17 years treated in the emergency department for unintentional injury, and their parents/caregivers.

Unit(s) of Observation

Individual (Child, Parent/Caregiver)

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables

Variables in Child Trauma Data Archive (CTDA) datasets have been standardized for cross-study analysis. For variable naming conventions, please refer to the CTDA Data Manual.

  • Study-level metadata: study title and P.I., series ID, methodology (weights, recruitment setting type)
  • Traumatic event descriptors: injury type/cause, degree of exposure (i.e., direct or indirect), injury circumstance, year of event, length of time in hospital, child's pulse at triage
  • Demographics: child/adolescent age, sex, race/ethnicity; parent/caregiver sex, race/ethnicity, education level, relationship status, relation to child/adolescent
  • Stress items: emotions, cognitions, and behaviors experienced by the child/adolescent during and following the incident (e.g., isolation, numbness, dissociation, poor memory, nightmares), both child self-report and parent report
  • Child's coping strategies following the incident
  • Whether parent/caregiver sought support due to the incident, both for child and self, and from what sources

Presence of Common Scales

  • Acute Stress Checklist for Children (ASC-Kids)
  • Child PTSD Symptom Scale (CPSS)
  • Child Stress Disorders Checklist (CSDC)
  • PTSD Checklist for Children - Parent Report (PCL-C/PR)
  • KidCOPE
  • Children's Coping Assistance Checklist (CCAC)

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Original Release Date

2025-05-27

Version History

2025-05-27 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.