Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Persons with disabilities suffer greater mental health problems fromdisasters

 Carol Forsloff - Louisiana asked for assistance from
BP to help treat people suffering from stress and anxiety related to
the oil spill and didn't receive it, even as experts say those with
pre-existing conditions need help.




The oil spill's devastation may be
subtly determined or decided in the future, but the fact is people
expressed stress and difficulty as jobs were imperiled and the unknowns
about the oil spill became a frightening prospect.




A hurricane is presently developing in Africa, headed towards the US coastline potentially.



Psychologists
are concerned that people with pre-existing mental health problems will
be the most vulnerable in the event of a disaster, as evidence supports
that is true.




Research done after Hurricane
Katrina and the Oklahoma City bombings chronicle what happens to people
with disabilities in response to these disasters.  The report has been
presented in Rehabilitation Psychology in its present edition.




“Katrina taught us a harsh lesson about the plight of vulnerable people
in times of disaster and national emergency,” said the journal’s
editor, Timothy Elliott, PhD, of Texas A&M University. “Solutions to
these problems won't be provided by any single profession or service,
which is why this special section brings together colleagues from
psychology, special education and rehabilitation administration to
provide information that will help us find solutions.”




A
study looked at a wide range of Hurricane Katrina survivors and
information about them was obtained from interviews with support people
as well as some of the victims themselves.



Barriers
to housing, transportation and other services still existed two years
after the storm.  People with disabilities were found less likely to be
employed.  They were found to require assistance in multipe areas.



Oklahoma
City bombing survivors suffered predominantly post-traumatic stress
disorder with the second most common psychiatric diagnosis major
depression.



“Interventions
to address unmet treatment needs for an abundance of pre-existing and
persistent psychiatric illness would not have been the primary response
needed for Oklahoma City survivors,” said the study’s lead author, Carol
North, MD, from the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. “This article
represents just one example of why disaster intervention plans need to
target expected mental health problems emerging in different
populations, settings and time frames.”



A
study done after the devastation brought by Hurricane Ike in Galveston,
Texas revealed 16 percent of the people had someone suffering from an
illness two to six months following the disaster.  Again post-traumatic
stress disorder and depression were key areas of concern.



“The
associations of injury with distress and disability suggest that
community programs should reach out to injured people for early mental
health and functional assessments,” said study author Fran Norris, PhD,
director of the National Center for Disaster Mental Health Research at
the Dartmouth Medical School. “Follow-up support services that address
mental health and functional problems could be part of the treatment
plan for those people treated for disaster-related injuries or
illnesses.”







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