Dr Justin Kenardy
Youth Mental Health Research
‘Effectiveness trial of the CARE screen-and-treat early intervention for improving physical and mental health outcomes in young injured children and their parents’
University of Queensland, QLD
Awarded 2018
“Traumatic stress is also under-recognised in infants and pre-schoolers as there is an assumption that they are immune to its impact, yet our research has demonstrated its significant impact of the lives of young children and their families.”
Researcher Profile
Professor Justin Kenardy is a clinical psychologist and Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland. He has focused on the translation of applied psychology, more specifically clinical psychology, into novel cross- and interdisciplinary areas. This has been through work at the interface between psychological and physical health, preventative, integrative and novel intervention technologies.
This has led to research in diverse areas including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, pain and musculoskeletal disease and injury, burn injury, traumatic brain injury, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress across a broad age range from infants to older adults. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers, chapters and abstracts.
Project Summary
This project is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an early psychological intervention for improving physical and mental health outcomes in young injured children. Developed by the current research team, the Coping with Accident Reactions (CARE) program is a brief, early intervention aimed at young children (1-6 years) at risk of developing ongoing posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) following accidental injury. Randomised control trials have supported the efficacy and feasibility of CARE in reducing PTSS severity in children compared to usual hospital treatment.
This project aims to now evaluate the effectiveness of the CARE intervention when delivered as part of routine clinical care, individualised for each family according to need and delivered by trained hospital health care professionals. Employing a RCT design, children aged 1-6 with burn injuries who are ‘high-risk’ for developing PTSS and their parents will be randomised to either (1) CARE or (2) usual care. This project also aims to determine the effectiveness the CARE intervention as well as the cost-effectiveness to inform healthcare decision-makers.
Co-Investigators: Alexandra DeYoung, Roy Kimble and Markus Landolt