The journey back to normality: Support systems and posttrauma needs following exposure to single‐incident trauma among children and adolescents

Abstract

Social support has been linked to posttrauma adjustment in children and adolescents, but the components of good support remain poorly defined. We conducted qualitative interviews with 30 youths aged 7-16 years after being admitted to a hospital following a single-incident trauma, predominantly injury or illness. The aim was to identify youths' support needs and examine the support they received across different recovery stages. Thematic analysis revealed that although participants appreciated increased attention and warm support during their hospital stay, most wanted their lives to return to normal soon afterward and were frus-This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.