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Post-crisis counseling helped New Yorkers handle 9/11, study shows

Emergency Management Alert, May 16, 2006

Post-crisis counseling helped New Yorkers handle 9/11, study shows

Are crisis interventions beneficial to patients exposed to psychologically traumatic events? One recent study says yes, adding more fuel to the fire in an already hot debate.

The effectiveness of psychiatric trauma treatments was analyzed by Dr. Joseph A. Boscarino, PhD, MPH, and senior investigator and lead researcher at the Center for Health Research at Danville, PA-based Geisinger Health Systems. Study results were released in the May issue of Medical Care.

The team examined the effects of such interventions received by employees at the worksite after the 2001 World Trade Center disaster in New York. Data came from telephone interviews with more than 1,100 adults one and two years after the attack. All study participants lived in New York City at the time of the incident.

Approximately 7% of New York City's adults--425,000 people-- reported receiving employer-sponsored, worksite crisis interventions from mental health professionals that related to the disaster.

Researchers found that attending one to three brief worksite sessions was associated with positive outcomes up to two years after the disaster. Good outcomes included a reduction in alcohol dependence, binge drinking, depression, severity of post-traumatic stress disorder severity and symptoms of anxiety.

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