Redmond AD. Debriefing. Emerg Med J 2007;24:605.
The journal apologises for an error that has occurred within the last sentence of this letter. The letter should read as follows.
In the article by Doy et al1 reference is made to “critical incident stress debriefing”. It was suggested there was some disagreement as to its effectiveness, but nevertheless the article appeared to be recommending its use. I would, however, refer readers to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines on post‐traumatic stress disorder (www.nice.org.uk). These guidelines state that for individuals who have experienced a traumatic event, the systematic provision to that individual alone of brief, single session interventions (often referred to as debriefing) which focus on the traumatic incident should not (their bold type) be routine practice when delivering services.