Premium
The Lockerbie disaster: A 3‐Year follow‐up of elderly victims
Author(s) -
Livingston Hilary M.,
Livingston Martin G.,
Fell Sheila
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.930091208
Subject(s) - anxiety , depression (economics) , incidence (geometry) , psychiatry , population , anxiety disorder , psychology , medicine , clinical psychology , environmental health , physics , optics , economics , macroeconomics
Abstract The long‐term outcome of a civilian disaster is examined in an elderly population assessed originally for medicolegal purposes. Thirty‐one elderly inhabitants of the village of Lockerbie, who had survived the Lockerbie air disaster, were assessed 1 year after the event. Nineteen of the sample were available for reexamination 2 years later. Although there was a significant reduction in the incidence of PTSD and significant improvement across a range of anxiety‐based symptoms, 15.7% of the subjects continued to fulfil diagnostic criteria (DSM‐III‐R) for PTSD. In these subjects, there was a persistence of other anxiety‐related symptoms and of major depression (DSM‐III‐R). This is the only longitudinal assessment of PTSD in elderly subjects and it shows that, as with younger subjects, PTSD tends to persist for at least 2 years after the traumatic event and, for a substantial minority, has still not remitted within 3 years of the traumatic event.