Mental illness up among Katrina survivors, study finds

Hurricane Katrina doubled the rate of serious mental illness in areas ravaged by the storm but the urge to commit suicide fell, partly because survivors bonded with each other, a Harvard-led study said Monday.

Billed as the biggest mental health study yet after Katrina killed about 1,500 people along the Gulf Coast, the survey showed that 15 percent of 1,043 survivors were found to have a serious mental illness five to eight months after the storm.

That figure suggests about 200,000 people from Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi face serious mental illness because of Katrina, with about a third suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and the remainder depression, said Ronald Kessler, the study's lead researcher.

Nearly 85 percent of the survivors faced a major financial, income, or housing loss, and more than a third endured extreme physical adversity after Katrina struck a year ago and flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, the survey showed. Nearly 23 percent encountered extreme psychological adversity.

About 25 percent reported having nightmares about their experiences -- a figure that rises to nearly 50 percent for people who lived in New Orleans.

from CNN