Els van Meijel

100 Chapter 6 | Posttraumatic stress in young children Method Participants and procedure The current study was part of a larger retrospective exploratory study and was conducted in the Academic Medical Center (AMC) and the VUmedical center (VUmc), both academic hospitals in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with a level 1 trauma center. The study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committees of both hospitals. All children age 0 to 7 years who had been involved in an accident, transported to the hospital by ambulance, and treated in the trauma (resuscitation) room between January 2006 and August 2011 were eligible for inclusion. Although the DSM-5 PTSD subtype for children 6 years and younger and the PTSD-AA algorithm are studied in children up to 6 years of age, we included 7-year-old children as well. In the clinical practice in the Netherlands, the distinction between age categories of children is often made as follows: young children are referred to as children aged 0-7 years and older children are referred to as children aged 8-17 years. In addition, many measures for PTSD use the same age categories. In order to stay close to the clinical practice and not to “forget” children aged 7 years, we decided to include 7-year-old children as well. One child per family was included. Exclusion criteria were: living abroad, unknown place of residence and telephone number, permanent neurological injury and injured due to child abuse. Children who were injured due to child abuse were excluded because of hospital’s policy for this group of children. The policy implied that we could not contact these children for our study. In order to identify eligible children for the study we used the trauma registration system(s) of the Emergency Department. First we performed a pilot study in order to test the procedures and measures. Thereafter, parents of the selected children received a letter in November 2011 containing information about the study. From December 2011 to February 2012, we contacted parents via telephone and invited them to participate. Informed consent was obtained from all participating parents. After informed consent, the first (MRG) and second author (EPMM) conducted a telephone interview with the parents.