A scoping review of the needs of children and other family members after a child's traumatic injury.

The review included only 12 papers, and the authors did not assess their quality, so the strength of the evidence is uncertain. The search was limited to papers from 2005 to September 2017, so relevant older work may have been missed. The search relied on terms such as need, and need can be described using many different words, so some relevant papers may not have been found. Most papers involved traumatic brain injury and long-term needs, so the findings may not apply to children with orthopaedic, chest or abdominal injuries, or to the early stages of rehabilitation. Only adolescents were asked directly about their own needs; younger children's needs were reported by families or professionals, and families may not accurately represent the child's views. No measurement tools were identified, so the review could not tell whether existing assessments are accurate or useful in practice. All included papers were exploratory, and most used a cross-sectional design, so they describe reported needs at one point rather than prove what helps.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. Funding included a part-time Trauma and Orthopaedic Research Secondment supported by Royal Manchester Children's Hospital Charities, and the work was supported by a National Institute for Health Research clinical doctoral research fellowship. The paper states that the views are the authors' own and not necessarily those of the NHS, NIHR or the Department of Health.

Do not read this as evidence that any rehabilitation service improves recovery after child trauma. It is a scoping review of reported needs, and it found no measurement tools; it did not assess study quality or measure treatment outcomes.