Inform patients after trauma better about the consequences
Patients who have survived a serious accident (trauma) should, like their relatives, be better informed about the possible consequences of their injuries. That is the most important conclusion of Nena Kruithof's research. On Friday, January 17, she obtained her PhD at Tilburg University on this subject.
Every year, 80,000 trauma patients with serious injuries are admitted to a hospital, of whom only two percent currently die. Because the focus is on surviving a trauma, the aftercare receives too little attention. That needs to be improved, Kruithof concludes, since part of the patients has to deal with physical and/or psychological problems as a result of the trauma, which can be of a permanent nature.
Kruithof advises to better inform patients in the event of discharge from the hospital about the extent of the recovery, the expected recovery time and the psychological problems that may occur. To further limit the consequences after a trauma, care providers should pay more attention to the recognition and treatment of psychological problems.
Nena Kruithof (Woerden, 1990) defends her dissertation, entitled Prevalence, recovery patterns and determinants of non-fatal outcome after trauma, in the auditorium of Tilburg University on Friday, January 17 at 1.30 p.m. Supervisor is Professor Jan Anne Roukema (Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, dept. Medical and Clinical Psychology).
Read more (Press release in Dutch)