New light shed on PTSD
The research looks at a specific incident, the 2006 Dawson College, and, while the report contains recommendations specific to that type of incident, it also provides results and ideas which could also be relevant to any organization. The research A research team from the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and Fernand-Seguin Research Centre of Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital has presented the results of its three-year study, a world first, into the 2006 Dawson College shooting to the Government of Quebec's Ministry of Public Security. The study's main goals were to: 1) Evaluate the effects of the psychological intervention plan set up immediately after the shooting, including an audit of the services offered; 2) Evaluate the physical and mental health of students, teachers and support staff of Dawson College; and 3) Develop a multimodal intervention program that would provide appropriate psychological support, evaluation and coordination. "A total of 30 percent of respondents experienced a psychological disorder, including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, alcohol dependence and social phobia - twice the percentage seen in a 2002 mental health survey of the Quebec population," says research team leader Dr. Alain Lesage of the Fernand-Seguin Research Centre of Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital and a professor of Psychiatry at the Universite de Montreal. "People with pre-existing mental disorders experienced difficulty up to 18 months after the shooting. Overall, 13 percent of the College's population sought professional help after the shooting, while another 14 percent accessed mental health information on the Internet." "We found that the greater the severity of exposure to the shooting, the greater the risk of developing post-traumatic stress or other psychological disorders," says Dr. Stephane Guay, director of the Trauma Study Centre of Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital and a member of the research team. Dr. Guay, also a professor of criminology at the Universite de Montreal, developed the scale of severity and degree of exposure to the shooting used in the survey that rated proximity from being wounded to being outside the College at the time. The study developed a proposed post-crisis PTSD support response, which it termed the SECURE program. This recommends the creation after major traumatic incidents of human resource focussed ‘crisis management’ teams and, in the case of public incidents such as the Dawson College shootings, the deployment of government-designated crisis-intervention experts to work with these teams. SECURE also recommends the creation of proactive activities for public education on mental illness, promotion of healthy workplaces, and early detection programs in the hope that more people will be encouraged to seek help in the future, as the study found that some Dawson respondents were reluctant to seek help due to the fear of being stigmatized by colleagues, friends and loved ones.
•Date: 10th Sept 2010 • Region: N.America •Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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