Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Facial Injuries: A Comparative Study.

AIM: The aim of the study was to identify the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in patients who had sustained facial injuries, additionally, we aimed to identify other variables that may modify the psychological response to trauma that include gender, age and presence of disfigurement post-treatment and visible scars/orthopedic injuries. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Participants comprised of 460 patients from several multinodal trauma centers in Bengaluru City, Karnataka, who had sustained facial injuries that had healed either with or without significant disfigurement or scarring and with visible/orthopedic injuries. One hundred and eleven patients of the chosen 460 had sustained nondisfiguring facial injuries while 153 patients sustained disfiguring facial injuries, 64 patients who sustained facial injury (i.e. 19.5%) were lost to follow-up and were not included in the study. One hundred and thirty-two had sustained orthopedic/visible injuries; however, in this group, 18 (i.e. 13.6%) patients were lost to follow-up and were excluded from the study. The impact of events scale (IES) was used to check the presence of PTSD. RESULTS: Statistically significant higher means of IES were present in patients with disfiguring facial injuries compared to nondisfiguring facial injuries, female patients compared to male patients, patients with disfiguring facial injuries compared to orthopedic/visible injuries and patients who were younger than 50 years of age compared to patients who were older than 50 years of age and the results observed were similar at all three study intervals (date of discharge (DOD), 1 month and 6 months postoperatively). CONCLUSION: Patients with disfiguring facial injuries had significantly higher PTSD levels compared to patients with nondisfiguring facial injuries, patients with orthopedic/visible injuries had statistically significant lower IES scores which could not be strictly termed PTSD when compared to patients with disfiguring facial injuries who had high scores of IES corresponding to high levels of PTSD and these results were observed at all three study intervals (DOD, 1 and 6 months postoperatively). Female patients with disfiguring facial injuries had significantly higher PTSD levels compared to male patients (at all the study intervals) and patients younger than 50 years of age had significantly higher PTSD levels compared to older patients.

Validation of a Kannada version of the Impact of Events Scale (IES).

BACKGROUND: This study presents a Kannada translation and validation of the Impact of Event Scale in a population of men and women exposed to maxillofacial trauma and orthopedic/ general trauma. MATERIALS & METHODS: A total of 96 study subjects from multi modal trauma centers in Bangalore city completed the Kannada translated questionnaire at the time of discharge, the first post- operative month and the sixth month of follow up. RESULTS: The Kannada IES is reliable when analyzed with the students T-test, it has good internal consistency with Cronbach's α-coefficients ranging from .970 to .974, the test-retest reliability with Karl Pearson's correlation of the scale at all three time intervals showed significant correlation. A principal component analysis was conducted to ascertain the validity and two components were derived from the 15 questions which were able to explain 88% of the variation and the two were retained (intrusion and avoidance). CONCLUSION: The Kannada version of the IES has satisfactory reliability, internal validity, test-retest reliability and the factor structure was similar to the proposed theoretical structure of the IES. How to cite this article: Tavane PN, Raghuveer HP, Kumar RD, Shobha ES, Rangan V, Dutt CS. Validation of a Kannada version of the Impact of Events Scale (IES). J Int Oral Health 2013; 5(5):38-47.