Survivors Of Hurricane Katrina Experience Psychological Stress, Survey Finds

The percentage of New Orleans residents reporting signs of severe mental illness increased from 11% to 14% between March 2006 and this summer, compared with about 6% before Hurricane Katrina hit more than two years ago, according to a recent Harvard Medical School survey, the Washington Post reports. The survey also found that the percentage of people in New Orleans who reported suicidal thoughts increased from 3% to 8% between March 2006 and the summer of 2007.

According to the Post, "it is not Hurricane Katrina itself but the persistent frustrations of the delayed recovery that are exacting a high psychological toll of people who never before had such troubles," psychiatrists say. Calls to mental health hot lines in the area surged after the hurricane and have remained high, according to organizers. In addition, area psychiatrists are overbooked because of a heightened demand.

Ronald Kessler, a professor of health care policy at Harvard and leader of the study, said, "It's really stunning in juxtaposition to what these kinds of surveys have shown after other disasters, or after people have been raped or mugged." Typically, "people have a lot of trouble the first night and the first month afterward. Then you see a lot of improvement," he said. However, with the rebuilding process in New Orleans going slowly, residents are "in this stage of where there are a lot of people just kind of giving up," Kessler said.

Daphne Glindmeyer, a New Orleans psychiatrist and president of the Louisiana Psychiatric Medical Association, said, "There's more depression, more financial problems, more marital conflict, more thoughts of suicide," adding, "And a lot of it is in people who never had any trouble before" (Whoriskey, Washington Post, 9/23).

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