Parental response to child injury: examination of parental posttraumatic stress symptom trajectories following child accidental injury.

Objective: Trajectory analyses were used to empirically differentiate patterns of posttraumatic stress symptoms in parents following child accidental injury and explore the relationship between parent and child recovery patterns.

Method: Parent (n = 189) self-reported symptoms from acute to 2 years post accident were examined to (1) identify distinct parent symptom trajectories; (2) identify risk factors; and (3) explore the patterns of children and parents together.

Results: Analysis revealed three distinct symptom trajectory groups for parents: resilient (78%); clinical level acute symptoms that declined to below clinical level by 6 months (recovery 8%); and chronic subclinical (14%). Children of resilient parents were most likely to be resilient. Half of the children of parents with chronic subclinical trajectories were likely to have chronic trajectories.

Conclusion: Clinicians cannot rely only on clinical level symptoms in parents to identify high risk families but include families where the parent has subclinical level symptoms.