Strong longitudinal and epidemiological data (ACE Study, 1998; 2010) suggests that daily and often unknowingly, general practitioners see a number of patients whose coping strategies become risk factors for physical, mental and psychosocial problems and/or who are experiencing the cumulative effects of trauma. With diverse presentations, high comorbidity, and/or unspecified pain (i.e. `medically unexplained symptoms’) they receive discrete diagnoses based on presenting symptoms, while the underlying trauma remains unrecognised and thus untreated.
This is because, in general, neither undergraduate courses nor postgraduate professional development focus on trauma. Research establishes that enhanced recognition, knowledge, and skills around trauma will intervene in the cumulative risk factors of chronic and co-morbid disease, reduce the burden of disease/disability, and promote disease prevention and healthy population outcomes. This presentation will discuss the ways in which practitioners can become informed about trauma, the ways people cope, its impacts, intergenerational factors and what GPs can do to facilitate pathways to recovery.
