Cited by 377Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ResearchFamily and Patient Care in Intensive Care UnitsGrief, Bereavement, and Mental Health

Traumatic stress in parents of children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit.

Balluffi, Andrew, Kassam-Adams, Nancy, Kazak, Anne, Tucker, Michelle, Dominguez, Troy, Helfaer, Mark·2004·Pediatric Critical Care Medicine

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To measure the prevalence of parental acute stress disorder (ASD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to examine the relationship between ASD symptoms and PTSD symptoms in parents of infants and children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). To examine the correlation between parental perceptions of illness severity and objective measures. To assess the association among demographic, situational, and illness factors and the severity of ASD and PTSD. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: Thirty-eight bed PICU at an urban children's hospital. PATIENTS: The parents of 272 children admitted to the PICU for >48 hrs. INTERVENTIONS: ASD symptoms were assessed using the Acute Stress Disorder Scale during the child's admission. PTSD symptoms were assessed using the PTSD Checklist at least 2 months after discharge. The severity of illness was measured using the Pediatric Risk of Mortality (PRISM III) score. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Of the 272 parents completing the initial assessment, 87 (32%) met symptom criteria for ASD. Of the 161 parents completing follow-up, 33 (21%) met symptom criteria for PTSD. PTSD symptoms at follow-up were associated with ASD symptoms assessed in the PICU, unexpected admission, parent's degree of worry that the child might die, and the occurrence of another hospital admission or other traumatic event subsequent to the index admission. Neither ASD nor PTSD responses were associated with objective measures of a child's severity of illness (PRISM III score). CONCLUSION: Traumatic stress symptoms are common among parents in the PICU and may persist long after discharge. There is strong support from these data for continued attention to supporting parents both during and after a child's PICU admission.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1097/01.pcc.0000137354.19807.44

Cites

26 of 26 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Balluffi, A., Kassam-Adams, N., Kazak, A., Tucker, M., Dominguez, T., & Helfaer, M.
Affiliations
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (US)
Venue
Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
Published
2004-11
Volume
5
Issue
6
Pages
547-553
ISSN
1529-7535 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2056568789
Cited by
377
References
25
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 17
FWCI
10.13
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Pediatric Critical Care Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Radiological and Ultrasound Technology › Family and Patient Care in Intensive Care Units
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health
Keywords
acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, pediatric intensive care unit, parents of critically ill children, PRISM III score
MeSH terms
Attitude to Death, Child, Child, Preschool, Female, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Urban, Humans, Infant, Length of Stay, Male, Parents, Prospective Studies, Severity of Illness Index, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Intensive Care Units, Pediatric, Cohort Studies, Prevalence, Risk Assessment, Stress Disorders, Traumatic, Acute

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review