A consensus building exercise to determine research priorities for silver trauma

Background Emergency care research into ‘Silver Trauma’, which is simply defined as major trauma consequent upon relatively minor injury mechanisms, is facing many challenges including that at present, there is no clear prioritisation of the issues. This study aimed to determine the top research priorities to guide future research. Methods This consensus-based prioritization exercise used a three-stage modified Delphi technique. The study consisted of an idea generating (divergent) first round, a ranking evaluation in the second round, and a (convergent) consensus meeting in the third round. Results A total of 20 research questions advanced to the final round of this study. After discussing the importance and clinical significance of each research question, five research questions were prioritised by the experts; the top three research priorities were: (1). What are older people’s preferred goals of trauma care? (2). Beyond the Emergency Department (ED), what is the appropriate combined geriatric and trauma care? (3). Do older adults benefit from access to trauma centres? If so, do older trauma patients have equitable access to trauma centre compared to younger adults? Conclusion The results of this study will assist clinicians, researchers, and organisations that are interested in silver trauma in guiding their future efforts and funding toward addressing the identified research priorities

Integrating Positive and Clinical Psychology: Viewing Human Functioning as Continua from Positive to Negative Can Benefit Clinical Assessment, Interventions and Understandings of Resilience

In this review we argue in favour of further integration between the disciplines of positive and clinical psychology. We argue that most of the constructs studied by both positive and clinical psychology exist on continua ranging from positive to negative (e.g., gratitude to ingratitude, anxiety to calmness) and so it is meaningless to speak of one or other field studying the “positive” or the “negative”. However, we highlight historical and cultural factors which have led positive and clinical psychologies to focus on different constructs; thus the difference between the fields is more due to the constructs of study rather than their being inherently “positive” or “negative”. We argue that there is much benefit to clinical psychology of considering positive psychology constructs because; (a) constructs studied by positive psychology researchers can independently predict wellbeing when accounting for traditional clinical factors, both cross-sectionally and prospectively, (2) the constructs studied by positive psychologists can interact with risk factors to predict outcomes, thereby conferring resilience, (3) interventions that aim to increase movement towards the positive pole of well-being can be used encourage movement away from the negative pole, either in isolation or alongside traditional clinical interventions, and (4) research from positive psychology can support clinical psychology as it seeks to adapt therapies developed in Western nations to other cultures