Staying Connected: Trauma Center to Tribal Community Linkage for Physically Injured American Indian Patients

The purpose of this study is to provide American Indian trauma patients, treated at the Harborview Level 1 urban trauma center, compassionate and culturally sensitive care and to link them to care in their distant tribal communities. The specific aims include 1) interview Native healers to gather information on culture-specific aspects of recovery from traumatic injury and on linking care to tribal communities, 2) conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the intervention. The investigators hypothesize that intervention patients will demonstrate greater improvement than controls in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depression, functioning, diagnoses, and fewer new injuries during the 6 months after the index injury.