The effectiveness of psychological debriefing for victims of acute burn trauma

Abstract

Psychological debriefing (PD) has been widely advocated and used following traumatic events in an attempt to prevent the later development of psychological sequelae. The quality of previous research into the effectiveness of PD has been relatively poor overall but has not been supportive of its effectiveness.

This thesis describes a randomised controlled trial of psychological debriefing in victims of acute burn trauma and their relatives. Following recruitment individuals completed initial questionnaires and were randomly allocated to a PD or control (no intervention group). Follow-up interviews with the clinician administered post-traumatic stress disorder scale (CAPS) and further questionnaires occurred at three and thirteen months following the burn trauma.

The PD group had higher initial questionnaire scores and more severe dimensions of burn trauma than the control group. They also displayed significantly higher scores on the CAPS and other outcome measures than the control group at both three and thirteen months. Forward stepwise linear regression analyses suggested that initial depression and percentage burn were significantly related to worse outcome whereas presence or absence of PD did not account for a significant proportion of the variance in CAPS scores. The relatives described similar levels of symptomatology to the subjects. PD appeared to have no significant impact on outcome in relatives.

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