Hospitalized psychiatric patients view the World Trade Center disaster

• Published in: Psychiatry research 2004-12, Vol.129 (2), p.201-207
• Main Authors: DeLisi, Lynn E., Cohen, Tiffany H., Maurizio, Andrea M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety - diagnosis; Anxiety - drug therapy; Anxiety - epidemiology; Attitude; Biological and medical sciences; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Drug Administration Schedule; Female; Hospitalization; Humans; Institution therapy. Inpatient treatment; Male; Medical sciences; Mental Disorders - diagnosis; Mental Disorders - drug therapy; Mental Disorders - rehabilitation; New York City; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychomotor Agitation - diagnosis; Psychomotor Agitation - drug therapy; Psychomotor Agitation - epidemiology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychotropic Drugs - administration & dosage; Psychotropic Drugs - therapeutic use; Schizophrenia; September 11 Terrorist Attacks - psychology; September 11, 2001; Severity of Illness Index; Terrorists; Time Factors; Trauma; Treatments
• ISSN: 0165-1781; 1872-7123
• DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2004.05.024

There is conflicting literature describing how psychiatric patients, particularly those with schizophrenia, respond to overwhelming environmental disasters, with some reports describing marked improvement in their symptoms. This view is contrary to the notion that those individuals who are most vulnerable (i.e. people with serious psychiatric illness) are at high risk for further increase in psychiatric symptoms subsequent to stressful events. Since the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, was such a catastrophic event, the following project was undertaken to examine its consequences on a population of hospitalized and thus severely ill psychiatric patients. Medical records for 156 New York City psychiatric inpatients were examined to evaluate their psychiatric condition during the time prior to and subsequent to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. We failed to find any difference between the patients who had the opportunity to directly view the disaster through windows and those who did not. However, significantly more patients with a schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis showed evidence of worsening in their symptoms than those with affective disorder or other diagnoses in response to the events of September 11.