Acute stress disorder, depression, and tobacco use in disaster workers following 9/11.

Abstract

Early posttraumatic psychiatric disorders have not been well studied in disaster workers. This study examined the rates of probable acute stress disorder (ASD), probable depression, increased tobacco use, and their associated risk factors in 9/11 World Trade Center disaster workers. Surveys were obtained from 90 disaster workers (e.g., medical personnel, police, firefighters, search and rescue) 2-3 weeks after 9/11. Nearly 15% of disaster workers had probable ASD and 26% had probable depression. Probable ASD and depression were highly related to functional impairment. The risk for ASD was increased for those with 9/11-specific disaster exposures, more pre-9/11 trauma exposures, and the peritraumatic dissociative symptom of altered sense of time. Disaster workers who were younger, non-White, or who had increasing numbers of peritraumatic dissociative symptoms were more likely to have probable depression. More than half of tobacco users increased their tobacco use after 9/11. Additionally, all tobacco users with probable ASD and almost all tobacco users with probable depression increased tobacco use. Rapid mobilization of resources for early screening and intervention and health promotion campaigns aimed at improving adverse health-related behaviors may be helpful for this high-risk group.

Effects of Forced Alcohol Intake Associated with Chronic Stress on the Severity of Periodontitis: An Animal Model Study

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Identification of the Effect of Depression on Risky Sexual Behavior: Exploiting a Natural Experiment

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Protecting worker and public health during responses to catastrophic disasters—learning from the World Trade Center experience

“…Significant, persistent health harm occurred among diverse exposure populations, including respiratory illness among rescue and recovery personnel [Herbstman et al, 2005;Banauch et al, 2006;Herbert et al, 2006;Aldrich et al, 2010;de la Hoz, 2010;de la Hoz, 2011;Kim et al, 2012], firefighters [Prezant et al, 2002;Banauch et al, 2006;Guidotti et al, 2011;Weakley et al, 2011;Cho et al, 2014], police [Kleinman et al, 2011], transit workers [Tapp et al, 2005], volunteers [de la Hoz, 2010;Debchoudhury et al, 2011], immigrant day laborer cleanup workers [Malievskaya et al, 2002;de la Hoz et al, 2008], and workers, residents, and students in adjacent areas Reibman et al, 2005;Reibman et al, 2009;Caplan-Shaw et al, 2011;Friedman et al, 2011;Maslow et al, 2012;]. Additional health impacts include cardiovascular and cardiometabolic [Jordan et al, 2011a;Jordan et al, 2013;Trasande et al, 2013], dermal [Huang et al, 2012], pediatric [Lederman et al, 2004;Szema et al, 2004;Szema et al, 2009;Trasande et al, 2013], and mental health [Biggs et al, 2010;Adams and Boscarino, 2011;Chiu et al, 2011;Cukor et al, 2011;Pietrzak et al, 2012]. Working on the WTC debris pile was associated with an elevated risk of post-9/11 sarcoidosis…”