Disaster Mental Health Workers and the Anniversary Effect
A study published in the April 2008 issue of Journal of Traumatic Stress examined anniversary reactions in mental health disaster relief workers following traumatic exposure at the site of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. Despite relatively low levels of symptom reporting, workers endorsed an increase in both negative mood symptoms and functional impairment at the one-year anniversary of their traumatic exposure (compared to 6 months postexposure). For individuals who met at least some of the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) immediately following exposure, overall self-reported PTSD symptoms tended to increase from 6 to 12 months. This tendency resulted specifically from an increase in hyperarousal symptoms. Although only a few of the participants had severe PTSD, the results demonstrated that disaster relief workers may experience an increase in symptomatology at the anniversary of their traumatic exposure.
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