Many Poorer New Yorkers Suffered Post-9/11 PTSD

MONDAY, May 15, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- Long after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, low-income, immigrant patients in New York City continued to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), researchers report.

The study also concluded that experiencing terrorist events second-hand, such as watching television news reports, does not cause PTSD, unless a person is already at increased risk for the disorder.

Researchers screened 930 men and women, ages 18 to 70, for PTSD in the months following the 9/11 attacks. The participants were primary care patients at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center. The majority were low-income immigrants, mostly Hispanic.

Previous community studies had found that PTSD rates dropped after six months. But this study "suggests that a sizable portion of the sample population continues to have PTSD associated with significant functional impairment seven to 16 months after the 9/11 attacks," lead author Yuval Neria, professor at Columbia University and co-director of the Center for the Study of Trauma and Resilience, New York State Psychiatric Institute, said in a prepared statement.

Her team published the study in the latest issue of General Hospital Psychiatry.

"Our findings highlight the specific needs for health care associated with post-disaster psychopathology among low-income Hispanic primary care patients," he said.

Neria noted that "many of these patients, for cultural or economic reasons, shun traditional mental health services and rely heavily on their primary care doctors for the provision of mental health intervention and treatment."

"This study reinforces the idea that early detection and treatment of PTSD in the primary care setting makes perfect sense," Dr. Anthony Ng, chairman of the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster, said in a prepared statement.

"Many in the population under study would be reluctant to seek psychiatric help for fear of being stigmatized within their communities, even though they are, in fact, at increased risk for PTSD and its associated illnesses," Ng said.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about PTSD.