Bradley Hospital Children’s Research Center awarded $3.3M grant to study trauma effects on teens

NICOLE NUGENT, a pediatric psychologist at Bradley Hospital Children’s Research Center, is leading research into how youth are affected by physical trauma and whether social media plays a role in their recovery. / COURTESY LIFESPAN
NICOLE NUGENT, a pediatric psychologist at Bradley Hospital Children’s Research Center, is leading research into how youth are affected by physical trauma and whether social media plays a role in their recovery. / COURTESY LIFESPAN

PROVIDENCE – Researchers at Bradley Hospital Children’s Research Center have received a $3.3 million five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to evaluate how youth are affected by physical trauma and whether social media plays a role in their recovery.

Prior research has shown two factors are important in predicting who will develop post-traumatic stress syndrome – an affected person’s biological response (such as elevated heart rate, increased cortisol levels, etc.) and his or her social environment, lead researcher Nicole Nugent, a pediatric psychologist with the research center, a collaborative group of pediatric mental health researchers from Bradley and Hasbro Children’s hospitals, told Providence Business News.

“There’s good correlation between increased heart rates and PTSD in kids … and there are all kinds of studies that have tried to unpack why that is or how to mitigate that … we know that the social environment – parents and friends and others in our social world – are sometimes more important than biology,” she said.

To that end, the study will recruit – over the grant’s first three years – 200 youth, ages 13 – 17, who have been treated in the emergency department due to physical trauma from a car accident, stabbing, shooting or other assault. They will be lent a smart phone and smart watch that monitors their biological markers – sweating, heart rate, etc. – and an electronically activated recorder that records random audio snippets of conversation every 30 seconds.

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“We have theories about what will be helpful [to children impacted], but this will allow us to measure what are people doing in the real world while we have heart data, etc.,” said Nugent, also an associate professor, research, at The Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, departments of psychiatry and human behavior and pediatrics. “We can develop interventions in the future that would be better targeted and more informed.”

Calling this the first research study in the world to address these issues, Nugent explained that the technology’s data downloaded from the participants will not include any identifying information, such as names, phone numbers, contact information or pictures. The two-week post-trauma window seems to be a key time frame; if trauma- affected children are not exhibiting PTDS symptoms within two weeks, they’re not likely to do so later, said Nugent.

Study participants, whose families will receive compensation, will be expected to return for follow-up meetings at two weeks, six weeks, six months and nine months. The study will take place exclusively at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, though Nugent noted that some colleagues at other academic institutions around the country contributed their scientific contributions to the study.

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