Publications by authors named "Sydney Timmer-Murillo"

Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the mental health of many, but few studies have focused on its impact on trauma patients and their recovery over time.
  • This study compared PTSD and depression rates between patients injured before and during the pandemic, finding that those injured during the pandemic experienced higher symptoms.
  • The research also revealed a link between pandemic-related stress and increased severity of PTSD and depression, suggesting a need for better psychological support for trauma patients during difficult times.
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Objective: Fetal anomalies occur in approximately 3% of pregnancies and receiving the diagnosis may be a potentially traumatic experience for families. The mental health of mothers receiving diagnoses and what predicts resilience or poor mental health is understudied. Emotion regulation is an important, modifiable, transdiagnostic factor of mental health, and may be protective post-diagnosis.

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  • Cure Violence interruption programs, like 414LIFE in Milwaukee, aim to reduce gun violence by reaching high-risk individuals and neighborhoods.
  • The study analyzed the "reach" of 414LIFE through descriptive and geospatial methods, focusing on gunshot wound patients under 36 during a specific timeframe.
  • Findings showed that 75.4% of referred patients met the program criteria, with significant clustering in priority neighborhoods, highlighting the program's effectiveness in targeting the right demographics.
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Anhedonia describes the inability or difficulty of experiencing or seeking pleasure. Previous research has demonstrated a relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or experiencing trauma and anhedonia symptoms; however, little to no work has been done to understand the evolution of anhedonia symptoms after trauma. We aimed to identify anhedonia trajectories following traumatic injury.

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Article Synopsis
  • The American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS-CoT) requires trauma centers to implement mental health screening for PTSD by 2023, leading to a study comparing the effectiveness of two screening tools: the Injured Trauma Survivor Screen (ITSS) and the Automated Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Screen.
  • This analysis involved 255 trauma patients, comparing the predictive accuracy of both screens for PTSD, with about 57.7% screening positive on the ITSS and 67.8% on the Automated EMR Screen; both screens showed similar effectiveness in identifying PTSD risk.
  • The study concluded that since both tools are comparably effective, trauma centers can choose the screening method that best fits their
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Article Synopsis
  • Up to 40% of individuals with traumatic injuries risk developing PTSD, with Black individuals facing an even higher risk due to experiences of racial discrimination.
  • This study investigated how racial discrimination affects biological stress responses in Black trauma survivors by examining gene expression related to stress (CTRA) two weeks and six months post-injury.
  • Findings showed that those with higher lifetime racial discrimination experienced significant increases in CTRA gene expression, indicating that racial discrimination may intensify biological stress responses following trauma.
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Objective: Our prior published work using the 2-factor model of PTSD identified four subgroups of trauma survivors on average 6 months following trauma: Resilient, Dysphoria, High Comorbid, and Severe Comorbid. Some findings indicate that low and high cortisol responses may increase risk for the development of PTSD and depression respectively, yet ways in which cortisol interacts with other physiological systems to enhance risk is unclear. This study examined the role of circulating eCBs in the development of previously identified psychopathological trajectories that is differentiated by cortisol in traumatically injured adults (N = 169).

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Individuals who have experienced more trauma throughout their life have a heightened risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following injury. Although trauma history cannot be retroactively modified, identifying the mechanism(s) by which preinjury life events influence future PTSD symptoms may help clinicians mitigate the detrimental effects of past adversity. The current study proposed attributional negativity bias, the tendency to perceive stimuli/events as negative, as a potential intermediary in PTSD development.

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Background: Black Americans are more likely than their White counterparts to experience traumatic injury and worse functional outcomes. Unfair police treatment has been identified as one specific form of racial discrimination potentially driving these deleterious outcomes. The aim of the investigation was to better understand the relationship between experiences of discrimination by police and trauma-specific quality of life outcomes, including PTSD symptom severity, in Black Americans following traumatic injury.

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Emotion dysregulation is a hallmark characteristic of psychopathology following trauma. Yet, emotion dysregulation is multifaceted, and little is known about which aspects of emotion dysregulation predict depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity following traumatic injury. The aim of this longitudinal study was to evaluate how facets of dysregulation differentially predicted the severity of PTSD symptom clusters and depressive symptoms six months after a traumatic injury requiring medical treatment.

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Importance: Firearm violence is a public health crisis placing significant burden on individuals, communities, and health care systems. After firearm injury, there is increased risk of poor health, disability, and psychopathology. The newest 2022 guidelines from the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma require that all trauma centers screen for risk of psychopathology and provide referral to intervention.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Previous research mostly looked at whether event centrality predicts PTSS, but this study found that PTSS actually predicts event centrality over time.
  • * The analysis suggests that as people develop PTSS, they begin to view the traumatic event as a key part of their life narrative, indicating a one-directional influence needing further research to explore other affecting variables.
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Background: Rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among injury survivors are higher relative to the general population, supporting the need to identify those most at risk for PTSD following injury given negative impact of PTSD on recovery. Perceived life threat and assaultive trauma are consistent risk factors for subsequent PTSD development, although less work has explored them in combination. The current study evaluated whether trauma type (assaultive vs.

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Emotion dysregulation that occurs after trauma conveys risk for multiple disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. Psychophysiological data (e.g.

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The literature demonstrates links between socioenvironmental characteristics, dysregulation of the stress response system, and PTSD, though few studies integrate these factors in one model. In a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data collected by the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW), structural equation modeling evaluated the relationships between socioenvironmental stress, cumulative biological risk (CBR), and PTSD symptom severity. The model hypothesized that exposure to socioenvironmental stress was associated with PTSD and that this relationship is mediated by increased CBR.

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Individuals who require hospitalization after traumatic injuries are at increased risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); however, few early behavioral interventions have been effective at preventing PTSD within this population. The aim of this pilot study was to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of modified prolonged exposure therapy (mPE) to prevent PTSD and depression symptoms among patients hospitalized after a DSM-5 single-incident trauma. Hospitalized patients were eligible if they screened positive for PTSD risk.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigated the effectiveness of the Injured Trauma Survivor Screen (ITSS) in predicting the severity of PTSD symptoms in trauma survivors from a major hospital.
  • A total of 220 participants completed the ITSS while in the hospital, and their PTSD symptoms were assessed one month after being discharged.
  • Key findings indicated that perceived life threat and intentionality of injury were significant predictors for certain PTSD symptoms, while mood and cognitive factors were more relevant for predicting negative mood and cognition changes.
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Background: Little effort has been made to address long-term quality of life, chronic pain (CP), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and functional disability in trauma survivors. This quality initiative was developed to determine feasibility of a coordinated, comprehensive, patient-centered follow-up clinic for those at risk for poor long-term outcomes.

Methods: A convenience sample from 649 hospitalized trauma patients at a Midwestern level 1 trauma center between February 2018 and August 2018 was screened for risk of PTSD and CP.

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Background And Objectives: A promising method of capturing the complex nature of emotion regulation is to assess composite profiles of regulation (i.e., default pattern of regulation across multiple strategies).

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