Validity of psychotraumatic reactions.

To determine whether posttraumatic reactions occurred in injured individuals not confronted with litigation or compensation (as reckoned in the U.S.), a parallel study was undertaken in a social-democratic country (Austria) between ski- and work-injured groups. Although each group had a significantly different way of regarding the injury, there appeared to be a comparable incidence of posttraumatic psychiatric reaction in each. The absence of compensation (in contrast to disability maintenance) did not inhibit the appearance of the posttraumatic reaction. A discussion of the effects of compensation and litigation pointed out the separate nature of the problems associated with these two aspects of dealing with injury, with those problems being imposed upon, but not causative of, the posttraumatic psychiatric reaction.