Staff perceptions of emotional distress in patients with burn trauma

Objective: To compare staff and patient perceptions of patients' emotional distress after acute burn trauma. Design: Staff ratings of patients' psychological states on 6 dimensions of emotional functioning were compared with patient self-report. Results: Staff as a whole and by discipline tended to overestimate depression and underestimate optimism in patients. Moreover, the more experienced (more than 2 years of burn care experience) nurses and occupational/physical therapists were less accurate in estimating depression and optimism than their less experienced counterparts. Conclusion: Consistent with results from spinal cord injury research, findings from the current study indicate a distinct tendency on the part of burn care staff to overestimate their patients' emotional distress and underestimate their positive outlook, supporting the notion that staff may be imposing a "requirement for mourning" on their patients.