Percentage of Katrina survivors with mental disorders increasing

Percentage of Katrina survivors with mental disorders increasing

Published 11/06/2007 - 1:44 a.m. GMT

Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest United States hurricane in seven decades, and the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. Over 500,000 people were evacuated, and nearly 90,000 square miles were declared a disaster area (roughly equal to the land mass of the United Kingdom).

The estimated prevalence of anxiety-mood disorders in the baseline survey was roughly twice as high as found three years earlier using the same measures in a survey of residents subsequently affected by Hurricane Katrina.

As noted above, researchers expected to find lower proportions of the population to have mental illness and suicidality this long after a disaster. Failing to find such a decrease, and instead discovering a number of increases, is an indication of the more severe adverse emotional effects of Hurricane Katrina than more typical disasters.

According to the researchers, providing the needed services to those affected may be particularly challenging since many pre-hurricane residents of the affected areas are now living elsewhere in the country. Still, they say, it is especially important to reach these geographically displaced people because of their comparatively high risk of serious mental illness.

SOURCE: HARVARD SCIENCE

This is just a part of the study. You need to read all of it. Go here for the rest
http://pressmediawire.com/article.cfm?articleID=3518


Unlike combat, survivors of Katrina all experienced the trauma on the same day, or days when you look at the people of the flood in New Orleans.

Look at the results. Look at the figures when the aftermath of Katrina was first being looked at and the condition of the survivors now. If you ever had a hard time understanding PTSD, Katrina should be the best picture of what trauma does to people because of territory effected relatively the size of the United Kingdom.

As you read this, understand that survivors of the Christmas tsunami did not experience the same levels of PTSD, but they did experience them. The difference is the way they treat each other in a village family support system.

Take the military. When soldiers come back, they return with their unit, together. They return with some kind of support system. Even at that, the rates of PTSD are higher than normal because the redeployments increase the risk of developing PTSD by 50%. Most National Guard units are reporting PTSD levels at 50% with suicides and homelessness higher. They return home to home, isolated from others and then face "normal" life back in the community with the daily stress of adapting back into jobs or searching to replace a job they lost while on deployment.

Some soldiers return to college and find themselves in with college students unable to understand what the soldier has gone through and they find themselves isolated while trying to fit back in.

If Katrina did not prove once and for all that PTSD is a human illness caused by traumatic events, nothing will. If it did not prove the importance of a support system in place to prevent suicides and assist healing, nothing will. This nation needs to mobilize to remove the stigma of PTSD, provide better communication with the communities so that they too take action and commit once and for all to treating PTSD with as much seriousness as they would treat going after a serial killer.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com