Trajectories of scores on a screening instrument for PTSD among World Trade Center rescue, recovery, and clean-up workers

Details

• Personal Author:
  Brackbill RM ; Caramanica K ; Farfel MR ; Maslow CB ; Stellman SD ; Welch AE
• Description:
  The longitudinal course of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) over 8-9 years was examined among 16,488 rescue and recovery workers who responded to the events of September 11, 2001 (9/11) at the World Trade Center (WTC; New York, NY), and were enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Registry. Latent class growth analysis identified 5 groups of rescue and recovery workers with similar score trajectories at 3 administrations of the PTSD Checklist (PCL): low-stable (53.3%), moderate- stable (28.7%), moderate-increasing (6.4%), high-decreasing (7.7%), and high-stable (4.0%). Relative to the low-stable group, membership in higher risk groups was associated with 9/11-related exposures including duration of WTC work, with adjusted odds ratios ranging from 1.3 to 2.0, witnessing of horrific events (range = 1.3 to 2.1), being injured (range = 1.4 to 2.3), perceiving threat to life or safety (range = 2.2 to 5.2), bereavement (range = 1.6 to 4.8), and job loss due to 9/11 (range = 2.4 to 15.8). Within groups, higher PCL scores were associated with adverse social circumstances including lower social support, with B coefficients ranging from 0.2 to 0.6, divorce, separation, or widowhood (range = 0.4-0.7), and unemployment (range = 0.4-0.5). Given baseline, exposure-related, and contextual influences that affect divergent PTSD trajectories, screening for both PTSD and adverse circumstances should occur immediately, and at regular intervals postdisaster. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Emergency Responders Men Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Women Workplace
• Keywords:
  Emergency-responders Exposure-levels Force Humans Rescue-workers Risk-factors Statistical-analysis Stress Work-environment Worker-health Workers

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• ISSN:
  0894-9867
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement ; Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New York ; OSHA Region 2
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  198-205
• Volume:
  28
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046543
• Citation:
  J Trauma Stress 2015 Jun; 28(3):198-205
• Contact Point Address:
  Carey B. Maslow, World Trade Center Health Registry, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 42-09 28th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101
• Email:
  cmaslow@health.nyc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  New York City Health/Mental Hygiene
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20090430
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Traumatic Stress
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:2434840ad916ca5f510122691d3b58e99feecb34032730659a0e60c62e039381f31216bda58039f94d8d91e157ae46535ba420fc960ec9312870cdcf4c439e1d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/201562/cdc_201562_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 246.86 KB ]