LAUSR

To the Editor: Between 20 and 40% of traumatically injured patients develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression within a year post-injury [1]. The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma strongly recommends that trauma centers routinely screen for PTSD and depression [2]. Resources that efficiently enhance capacity to identify good candidates for mental health follow-up are therefore a priority. The Peritraumatic Distress Inventory (PDI) [3] is a 13-item measure of acute emotional and physiological distress, a strong predictor of PTSD [4,5]. The relation between peritraumatic distress and development of depression is understudied. One prospective study with Japanese patients following a motor vehicle accident (MVA) found a relation between the PDI and depressive and anxiety symptoms one-month post-injury [6,7]. We used data from a prospective clinical sample of patients admitted to a Level I trauma center following traumatic injury to examine the predictive value of the PDI relative to depression severity and clinical status 30-days post-injury, and to establish optimal PDI cutoff scores predicting clinically elevated depression. Data were obtained from patients enrolled in the Trauma Resilience and Recovery Program (TRRP) [8] between August 2015 and July 2017. Patients were approached by TRRP staff who administered the PDI, provided psychoeducation about emotional recovery, and requested permission to contact them by telephone to conduct a 30-day mental health screen. Staff contacted patients approximately 30days post-injury (Median days= 39) and administered a brief mental health screen, which included the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), a 9item self-report measure of depression severity [9]. Total scores≥ 10 on the PHQ-9 indicate clinically elevated depression [10].