TY - JOUR
T1 - A wellbeing program to promote mental health in paediatric burn patients
T2 - Study protocol
AU - Wickens, Nicole
AU - McGivern, Lisa
AU - de Gouveia Belinelo, Patricia
AU - Milroy, Helen
AU - Martin, Lisa
AU - Wood, Fiona
AU - Bullman, Indijah
AU - van Rensburg, Elmie Janse
AU - Woolard, Alix
N1 - Funding Information:
A Channel 7 Telethon Trust grant awarded to HM (https://www.telethon7.com/). The funders did not and will not have a role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors would like to thank all the participants for their time and willingness to be involved in this study. The authors also acknowledge the ongoing support and contributions of the staff at the Perth Children’s Hospital outpatient burns clinic. We also acknowledge the contributions of Mathew McQueen in the early conceptualisation of the program sessions and design.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Wickens et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2024/2
Y1 - 2024/2
N2 - Background One of the most traumatic injuries a child can experience is a severe burn. Despite improvements in medical treatments which have led to better physical outcomes and reduced mortality rates for paediatric burns patients, the psychological impact associated with experiencing such a traumatic injury has mostly been overlooked. This is concerning given the high incidence of psychopathology amongst paediatric burn survivors. Objectives This project will aim to pilot test and evaluate a co-designed trauma-focused intervention to support resilience and promote positive mental health in children and adolescents who have sustained an acute burn injury. Our first objective is to collect pilot data to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention and to inform the design of future trauma-focussed interventions. Our second objective is to collect pilot data to determine the appropriateness of the developed intervention by investigating the changes in mental health indicators pre-and postintervention. This will inform the design of future interventions. Methods This pilot intervention study will recruit 40 children aged between 6–17 years who have sustained an acute burn injury and their respective caregivers. These participants will have attended the Stan Perron Centre of Excellence for Childhood Burns at Perth Children’s Hospital. Participants will attend a 45-minute weekly or fortnightly session for six weeks that involves building skills around information gathering, managing reactions (behaviours and thoughts), identifying, and bolstering coping skills, problem solving and preventing setbacks. The potential effects and feasibility of our intervention will be assessed through a range of age-appropriate screening measures which will assess social behaviours, personal qualities, mental health and/or resilience. Assessments will be administered at baseline, immediately post-intervention, at 6- and 12-months post-intervention. Conclusion The results of this study will lay the foundation for an evidence-based, trauma-informed approach to clinical care for paediatric burn survivors and their families in Western Australia. This will have important implications for the design of future support offered to children with and beyond burn injuries, and other medical trauma populations.
AB - Background One of the most traumatic injuries a child can experience is a severe burn. Despite improvements in medical treatments which have led to better physical outcomes and reduced mortality rates for paediatric burns patients, the psychological impact associated with experiencing such a traumatic injury has mostly been overlooked. This is concerning given the high incidence of psychopathology amongst paediatric burn survivors. Objectives This project will aim to pilot test and evaluate a co-designed trauma-focused intervention to support resilience and promote positive mental health in children and adolescents who have sustained an acute burn injury. Our first objective is to collect pilot data to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention and to inform the design of future trauma-focussed interventions. Our second objective is to collect pilot data to determine the appropriateness of the developed intervention by investigating the changes in mental health indicators pre-and postintervention. This will inform the design of future interventions. Methods This pilot intervention study will recruit 40 children aged between 6–17 years who have sustained an acute burn injury and their respective caregivers. These participants will have attended the Stan Perron Centre of Excellence for Childhood Burns at Perth Children’s Hospital. Participants will attend a 45-minute weekly or fortnightly session for six weeks that involves building skills around information gathering, managing reactions (behaviours and thoughts), identifying, and bolstering coping skills, problem solving and preventing setbacks. The potential effects and feasibility of our intervention will be assessed through a range of age-appropriate screening measures which will assess social behaviours, personal qualities, mental health and/or resilience. Assessments will be administered at baseline, immediately post-intervention, at 6- and 12-months post-intervention. Conclusion The results of this study will lay the foundation for an evidence-based, trauma-informed approach to clinical care for paediatric burn survivors and their families in Western Australia. This will have important implications for the design of future support offered to children with and beyond burn injuries, and other medical trauma populations.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85185233600&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0294237
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0294237
M3 - Article
C2 - 38359022
AN - SCOPUS:85185233600
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 19
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
IS - 2 February
M1 - e0294237
ER -
