Does talking about ACEs improve outcomes/increase agency?

Hi Brendan

This might be insightful:

"ACE Study questions relating to traumatic life experiences in childhood were added to the comprehensive medical history questionnaire that patients filled out at home. An analysis of 135,000 consecutive adults going through Health Appraisal in a 2.5-year period revealed that the addition of these trauma-oriented questions, with follow-up in the exam room produced a 35% reduction in outpatient visits and an 11% reduction in Emergency Department visits over the following year compared with that group’s prior year utilization. We realized that asking, initially via an inert mechanism with later follow up in the exam room, coupled with listening and implicitly accepting the person who had just shared his or her dark secrets, is a powerful form of doing." Vincent J Felitti January 2019. See:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6326558/ 

Hope helps
Geoff

Hi Brendan,

The answer is like so many,  "it depends."

Geoff pointed out research that reveals great outcomes if this happens..."follow up in exam room with listening and implicit accepting of the person." Unfortunately this doesn't always happen, in fact more often doesn't happen because the responders have their own unacknowledged and trauma.

So just doing an ACE Screening without a sensitive follow-up acknowledgement and/or an implicit response of acceptance and understanding potentially creates more vicarious trauma for both responders and patients. It's about how people connect when discussing ACES or trauma.

Be well,

Dr.B www.drbconnections.com

There is not enough outcome research published! I suspect we will start to see some outcome studies in a few years in California to measure the effectiveness of the ACEs Aware programs. So far, most data is from anecdotal case studies.