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Dana Mortensen
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
mortensen@email.chop.edu
(267)426-6092

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In the News	Fact Sheets and Downloads
Press Releases	Published Research
Expert Bios	ATI is on Twitter!

 

In the News

Dog bites can leave kids with emotional scars too
July 11, 2010 – Reuters

When a Child Gets Hurt, a Sibling May Be at Risk
June 7, 2010 – New York Times

Reliving a nightmare: Parents can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after injury to child
January 22, 2010 – Chicago Parent

How to cope when your child is hurt
January 20, 2010 – 6abc.com

Parent PTSD: When Junior's OK, but mom and dad are hurting
January 17, 2010 – Globe and Mail

They Say: Kid’s Injury Can Lead to Parent’s PTSD
January 13, 2010 – Strollerderby

Emotional trauma after a child's injury
January 12th, 2010 – WHYY

Experiencing stress after your child's injury?
January 12, 2010 – Carolina Parent

Parents of injured kids often feel lasting trauma
January 11, 2010 – Times Union

Press Releases

New Research Finds More Than One-third of Parents Experience Traumatic Stress One Month After Child’s Injury
January 11, 2010 –  The Center’s behavioral researchers recently published research in the Journal of Traumatic Stress showing that, one month after their child was injured,  37 percent of parents experienced acute stress disorder or significant traumatic stress symptoms. Of those parents 15 percent displayed longer-term symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) more than six months after the initial injury.  To help families bounce back from a child’s injury, Center Researchers have created www.AfterTheInjury.org.
Read the full press release
View a related fact sheet

Center Experts Launch www.AfterTheInjury.org to Help Families Through a Child's Injury
May 27, 2009 – To help parents deal with kids’ injuries in the summer and year-round, a team of expert behavioral researchers, trauma surgeons and trauma nurses launched a new website, www.AfterTheInjury.org. Taking the the best from science and practice, the new site lets parents watch brief videos, download tip sheets, and create a personalized care plan based on their child’s individual situation. The website was developed based on nearly a decade of research on childhood injury and its emotional effect on kids and their parents.
Read the full press release
View Related Fact Sheets

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Announces a $50,000 Grant from Verizon to Help Prevent Traumatic Stress in Children After an Injury
February 1, 2008 – The Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia received a $50,000 grant to help prevent traumatic stress in children after an injury. Researchers at the Center are working with injured children and their families to develop effective screening tools and interventions that can be integrated into hospital trauma care. They are developing a state-of-the-art interactive Web site that will provide parents with easy access to credible information, tips, and practical tools to help support their injured children’s emotional recovery.
Read the full press release

Children Unhurt in Crashes Should Still be Monitored for Acute Stress Reactions
November 7, 2005 – In a national study of children in motor vehicle crashes, researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia report that traumatic stress can occur without injury. Looking at a wide range of crashes reported to State Farm Insurance Companies®, researchers found that while most children did well, two percent of them and five percent of their parents experienced multiple traumatic stress symptoms that disrupted their lives. Researchers urge clinicians to screen children and their parents after any crash experience.
Read the full press release

Acute Stress Disorder Is Common Among Children and Parents Following Pediatric Traffic Injury, According to Researchers at The Children's Hospital Of Philadelphia
June 3, 2002 – In 90 percent of families with children injured in a traffic crash, the child or a parent will suffer at least one significant acute stress symptom, according to a study conducted at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Moreover, 25 percent of children and parents experience more pervasive symptoms that warrant clinical attention. Nancy Kassam-Adams, Ph.D. and Flaura K. Winston, M.D., Ph.D., co-authors of the study in the June 2002 issue of Pediatrics, offer guidelines for assessing acute stress symptoms in children and parents.
Read the full press release

 

Expert Bios

Nancy Kassam-Adams, Ph.D., Director of Behavioral Research at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention

Flaura Koplin Winston, M.D., Ph.D., Scientific Director at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention

 

Fact Sheets and Downloads

Facts About Injury and Traumatic Stress
Quick Summer Safety Guide
SafeKids Summertime Injury Report
After The Injury: Helping My Child Cope (for parents)
After The Injury: Tips for Kids (for children 8 and older)
After The Injury: Helping Myself Cope (for parents)

From the Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress
At the Hospital: Helping My Child Cope (for parents)
At the Hospital: Helping My Teen Cope (for parents)
After the Hospital: Helping My Child Cope (for parents)
Additional links available on our Resources page

 

Published Research

The Center for Injury Research and Prevention and the Center for Pediatric Traumatic Stress at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have produced a decade’s worth of research on children’s and parents’ reactions to injury. Following are a list of relevant publications. For more information, please visit each center’s individual website.

• Kassam-Adams, N., Fleisher, C., & Winston, F.K. (accepted for publication: Journal of Traumatic Stress). Acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder in parents of injured children.
• Kassam-Adams N, Winston FK. Introducing Healthcare Providers to www.AfterTheInjury.org.The Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s (MCHB) EMSC webcast. April 20, 2009.  (Webcast presentation).
• Kassam-Adams, N., Marsac, M., & Winston, F.K. (2009) AfterTheInjury.org: Development of a website for parents promoting secondary prevention of child traumatic stress. Conference proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop in Human and Societal Dynamics (Internet and Mental Health), Montreal.
• Kassam-Adams, N.  (2008). Prevention of Child Traumatic Stress Disorders. In G. Reyes, J. D. Elhai, & J. D. Ford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Psychological Trauma. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
• Pailler M., Kassam-Adams N., Datner E., & Fein J. (2007) Depression, acute stress and behavioral risk factors in violently injured adolescents. General Hospital Psychiatry, 29:357-63.
• Kassam-Adams N, Garcia-Espana FJ, Miller VA, Winston FK. Parent-child agreement regarding children's acute stress: the role of parent acute stress reactions. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. December 2006 ; 45(12):1485-93
• Kassam-Adams N. The Acute Stress Checklist for Children (ASC-Kids): Development of a Child Self-Report Measure. Journal of Traumatic Stress. February 2006 ; 19(1):11-11
• Winston FK, Baxt C, Kassam-Adams N, Elliott MR, Kallan MJ. Acute traumatic stress symptoms in child occupants and their parent drivers after crash involvement. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. November 2005 ; 159(11):1074-9
• Kazak A, Kassam-Adams N, Schneider S, Zelikovsky N, Alderfer M, Rourke M. An integrative model of pediatric medical traumatic stress. Journal of Pediatric Psychology. August 10 2005 (Epub ahead of print).
• Kassam-Adams N. Introduction to the Special Issue: Posttraumatic Stress Related to Pediatric Illness and Injury. Journal of Pediatric Psychology. August 2005
• Kassam-Adams N, Garcia-Espana FJ, Fein JA, Winston FK. Heart rate and posttraumatic stress in injured children. Archives of General Psychiatry. March 2005 ; 62(3):335-40
• Baxt C, Kassam-Adams N, Nance ML, Vivarelli-O’Neill C, Winston FK. Assessment of pain after injury in the pediatric patient: child and parent perceptions. Journal of Pediatric Surgery. June 2004; 39(6):979-83
• Kassam-Adams N, Winston FK. Predicting Child PTSD: the relationship between acute stress disorder and PTSD in injured children. Journal of Academic Child and Adolescent Psychology. April 2004 ; 43(4):403-11
• Kassam-Adams N, Fein JA. Posttraumatic stress disorder and injury. Clinical Pediatric Emergency Medicine. 2003 ;4:148-55.Review.
• Winston FK, Kassam-Adams N, Garcia-Espana FJ, Ittenbach R, Cnaan A. Screening for risk of persistent posttraumatic stress in injured children and their parents.  JAMA. August 2003 ; 290(5):643-9
• Fein JA, Kassam-Adams N, Gavin M, Huang R, Blanchard D, Datner EM.. Persistence of posttraumatic stress in violently injured youth seen in the emergency department. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. August 2002 ; 156(8):836-40
• Winston F.K., Kassam-Adams N, Vivarelli-O'Neill, C., Ford, J., Newman, E., Baxt, C., Cnaan, A., & Stafford, P. Acute stress disorder symptoms in children and their parents after pediatric traffic injury. Pediatrics. 109(6): e90
• Horowitz L, Kassam-Adams N, Bergstein J. Mental health aspects of emergency medical services for children: summary of a consensus conference. Journal of Pediatric Psychology. December 2001 ;26(8):491-502
• Fein, J., Kassam-Adams, N., Vu, T. & Datner, E. (2001). Emergency Department Evaluation of Acute Stress Disorder symptoms in violently injured youths. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 38:391-396
• de Vries AP, Kassam-Adams N, Cnaan A, Sherman-Slate E, Gallagher PR, Winston FK. Looking beyond the physical injury: posttraumatic stress disorder in children and parents after pediatric traffic injury. Pediatrics. December 1999 ;104(6):1293-9