| Road Traffic Accidents |
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The most common trauma that any person in the UK and Ireland is likely to experience is caused by road traffic accidents, either as a driver, passenger or a pedestrian.
Individuals involved in Road Traffic Accidents may develop psychological damage irrespective of any physical injury. Sometimes relatively minor RTAs may have distressing consequences because the person involved is made to feel powerless by the inevitability of the accident and their lack of control. After an RTA a person may typically become more irritable, and short-tempered. Mood may be low or numbed and sleep affected. They lose interest in previously valued activities and people. The person may feel anxious, expecting something catastrophic to happen. The world does not feel like a safe or reliable place any longer. They may even start thinking about their own death if they anticipated, even for a brief moment, that they, or another person, were going to die in the accident. Some individuals feel so overwhelmed by the accident that they may experience nightmares, relive the accident and avoid reminders of the accident. Most of these feelings are normal reactions which may last up to one month after the accident. After one month if these feelings continue they become a cause for concern. The psychological damage that might arise varies widely. It may take the form of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or anxiety, depression or travel anxiety or phobia. In the UK RTAs are the commonest cause of PTSD. About one in ten of those involved in a serious road traffic accident will develop PTSD and a year after the accident one in twenty will still have PTSD. Evidence from National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence suggests that counselling is not beneficial in treating PTSD as it is non-focused and does not address specific symptoms. Instead NICE recommends Eye Movement Desensitisation (EMDR) Therapy and Trauma Focused Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) as most successful approaches.
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