Childhood Trauma Management in Primary Care

Abstract

For most families, the primary provider is the go-to professional to turn to when there are concerns for a child’s health and well-being. In fact, almost 93% of children aged birth to 18 years visit a medical provider annually. For many children, the issues that bring them to pediatric attention are trauma related. For instance, 68% of children seen in a pediatric health care setting have experienced exposure to traumatic events, and as many as 90% of children in urban pediatric clinics have had a traumatic exposure. Therefore, pediatricians need to be able to recognize and respond to these issues.