The Late Effect of Accidental Injury Questionnaire (LEAIQ)

The Late Effect of Accidental Injury Questionnaire (LEAIQ) is a self-report questionnaire constructed to assess the biological, psychological and social effects of traumatic injuries. The LEAI covers current civil and employment status (4 questions); possible negative or positive consequences of the injury (20 questions) symptoms of post-traumatic distress (24 questions); aspects of the accident situation and the emotional impact of the trauma considered to be of relevance for the development of post-traumatic stress disorder and litigation behaviour (3 questions). The last part of the LEAIQ deals with the patient's opinion about the hospital treatment and follow-up control and self-perceived current medical or social needs (4 questions). Preliminary data on reliability and validity are reported from two studies investigating a total of 640 accidentally injured adults. The data indicate that the LEAIQ is easy to fill in for the patients and provides fairly good estimates of the frequency of the long-term biological, psychological and social effects in a sample of accidentally injured adults. The data on sensitivity and negative predictive power further suggest that the LEAIQ should be suitable in clinical practice as a first-step instrument for screening late effects of trauma.