Connecting With Trauma Patients After Discharge: A Phone Call Follow-Up Study

Traumatic injury is sudden and unexpected. It may lead to long-standing physical and physiological consequences. Approximately 10% of the world's disease burden is attributable to traumatic injuries. At the commencement of the study, there was limited information regarding civilian trauma patients' recovery following discharge from the hospital. There are several reasons for this including lack of available resources for follow-up by clinical staff and often trauma patients have multiple injuries, which can result in fragmented care. This limits the ability to assess a patient's recovery following discharge from the hospital.

This phone call follow-up study was conducted to assess the number of trauma patients who may be showing symptoms of physical and psychological distress after traumatic injury.

The study was carried out in New South Wales (Australia) Metropolitan major (Level 1) trauma center. Consented patients were contacted at 72 hr, 1 month, and 3 months after discharge from the hospital.

Many patients at all time points had difficulty coping with activities of daily living from pain (183 patients [64%], 121 patients [43%], and 58 patients [23%]), fatigue and sleep disturbance (110 patients [38%], 79 patients [28%], and 49 patients [20%]), as well as anxiety and frustration (38 patients [13%], 79 patients [28%], and 98 patients [39%]) regarding their recovery and returning to their preinjury activities.

The research indicates that some trauma patients do not recover quickly physically or emotionally. These patients require identification and appropriate management of the consequences of trauma to enable them to return to their preinjury quality of life.