Intensive longitudinal assessment following index trauma to predict development of PTSD using machine learning.

There are significant challenges to identifying which individuals require intervention following exposure to trauma, and a need for strategies to identify and provide individuals at risk for developing PTSD with timely interventions. The present study seeks to identify a minimal set of trauma-related symptoms, assessed during the weeks following traumatic exposure, that can accurately predict PTSD. Participants were 2185 adults (Mean age=36.4 years; 64% women; 50% Black) presenting for emergency care following traumatic exposure. Participants received a 'flash survey' with 6-8 varying symptoms (from a pool of 26 trauma symptoms) several times per week for eight weeks following the trauma exposure (each symptom assessed ∼6 times). Features (mean, sd, last, worst, peak-end scores) from the repeatedly assessed symptoms were included as candidate variables in a CART machine learning analysis to develop a pragmatic predictive algorithm. PTSD (PCL-5 ≥38) was present for 669 (31%) participants at the 8-week follow-up. A classification tree with three splits, based on mean scores of nervousness, rehashing, and fatigue, predicted PTSD with an Area Under the Curve of 0.836. Findings suggest feasibility for a 3-item assessment protocol, delivered once per week, following traumatic exposure to assess and potentially facilitate follow-up care for those at risk.

Utility of Wrist-Wearable Data for Assessing Pain, Sleep, and Anxiety Outcomes After Traumatic Stress Exposure.

Importance: Adverse posttraumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae after traumatic stress exposure are common and have higher incidence among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. Pain, depression, avoidance of trauma reminders, reexperiencing trauma, anxiety, hyperarousal, sleep disruption, and nightmares have been reported. Wrist-wearable devices with accelerometers capable of assessing 24-hour rest-activity characteristics are prevalent and may have utility in measuring these outcomes. Objective: To evaluate whether wrist-wearable devices can provide useful biomarkers for recovery after traumatic stress exposure. Design, Setting, and Participants: Data were analyzed from a diverse cohort of individuals seen in the emergency department after experiencing a traumatic stress exposure, as part of the Advancing Understanding of Recovery After Trauma (AURORA) study. Participants recruited from 27 emergency departments wore wrist-wearable devices for 8 weeks, beginning in the emergency department, and completed serial assessments of neuropsychiatric symptoms. A total of 19 019 patients were screened. Of these, 3040 patients met study criteria, provided informed consent, and completed baseline assessments. A total of 2021 provided data from wrist-wearable devices, completed the 8-week assessment, and were included in this analysis. The data were randomly divided into 2 equal parts (n = 1010) for biomarker identification and validation. Data were collected from September 2017 to January 2020, and data were analyzed from May 2020 to November 2022. Exposures: Participants were recruited for the study after experiencing a traumatic stress exposure (most commonly motor vehicle collision). Main Outcomes and Measures: Rest-activity characteristics were derived and validated from wrist-wearable devices associated with specific self-reported symptom domains at a point in time and changes in symptom severity over time. Results: Of 2021 included patients, 1257 (62.2%) were female, and the mean (SD) age was 35.8 (13.0) years. Eight wrist-wearable device biomarkers for symptoms of adverse posttraumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae exceeded significance thresholds in the derivation cohort. One of these, reduced 24-hour activity variance, was associated with greater pain severity (r = -0.14; 95% CI, -0.20 to -0.07). Changes in 6 rest-activity measures were associated with changes in pain over time, and changes in the number of transitions between sleep and wake over time were associated with changes in pain, sleep, and anxiety. Simple cutoffs for these biomarkers identified individuals with good recovery for pain (positive predictive value [PPV], 0.85; 95% CI, 0.82-0.88), sleep (PPV, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.59-0.67, and anxiety (PPV, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.72-0.80) with high predictive value. Conclusions and Relevance: These findings suggest that wrist-wearable device biomarkers may have utility as screening tools for pain, sleep, and anxiety symptom outcomes after trauma exposure in high-risk populations.

Ambulance transport rates after motor vehicle collision for older vs. younger adults: a population-based study.

Older adults are at greater risk than younger adults for life-threatening injury after motor vehicle collision (MVC). Among those with life-threatening injury, older adults are also at greater risk of not being transported by emergency medical services (EMS) to an emergency department. Despite the greater risk of serious injury and non-transportation among older adults, little is known about the relationship between patient age and EMS transportation rates for individuals experiencing MVC. We describe transport rates across the age-span for adults seen by EMS after experiencing MVC using data reported to the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles between 2008 and 2011. Of all adults aged 18 years and older experiencing MVC and seen by EMS (n=484,310), 36.3% (n=175,768) were transported to an emergency department. Rates of transport for individuals seen by EMS after MVC increased only a small amount with increasing patient age. After adjusting for potential confounders of the relationship between patient age and the decision to transport (patient gender, patient race, air bag deployment, patient trapped or ejected, and injury severity), transport rates were: age 18-64=36.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 35.9-36.2%); age 65-74=36.6% (95% CI, 36.0-37.1%); age 75-84=37.3% (95% CI, 36.5-38.1%), and age 85-94=38.2% (95% CI, 36.7-39.8%). In North Carolina between 2008 and 2011, the transportation rate was only slightly higher for older adults than for younger adults, and most older adults experiencing MVC and seen by EMS were not transported to the emergency department. These findings have implications for efforts to improve the sensitivity of criteria used by EMS to determine the need for transport for older adults experiencing MVC.

The feasibility of pain assessment in the prehospital setting.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the feasibility of prehospital pain measurement among patients 13 years of age or older using a verbal and numeric rating scale and to assess the severity of pain in a prehospital patient population. METHODS: Retrospective cross-sectional study of emergency medical services (EMS) run sheets after the adoption of a universal prehospital pain assessment protocol. Data were abstracted from a sequential (1:4) sample of run sheets from the first three months after adoption of the protocol. Verbal rating scale (VRS) and numeric rating scale (NRS) pain assessment information was obtained, along with demographic, location, and call information. Run sheets without pain assessment underwent structured review and classification according to predefined protocol. Descriptive statistics and 95% confidence intervals were calculated. RESULTS: A total of 1,227 run sheets were reviewed, 582 (47%) of patients were male, and 452 (36%) were 65 years of age or older. A total of 907 (75%) were nontrauma transports and 27 (2%) were unconscious. Among conscious patients, pain was assessed using the protocol in 1,002 of 1,200 (84% [range, 81%-86%]). Among patients reporting pain, 104 of 518 (20% [range, 17%-24%] completed a VRS but not an NRS. The greatest risk factor for no pain assessment was altered mental status (39% of patients not assessed). Forty-eight percent (23 of 48) of patients with altered mental status reporting pain completed a VRS only. Thirty-one percent (range, 28%-34%) of all patients in the sample reported moderate or severe pain. CONCLUSION: Prehospital pain assessment using a VRS and NRS was feasible in this patient population. Further studies are needed to confirm this finding in other settings. Moderate or severe pain was present in approximately 31% of patients.