The Lockerbie disaster: A 3-Year follow-up of elderly victims

✍ Scribed by Dr. Hilary M. Livingston; Martin G. Livingston; Sheila Fell

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 484 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6230
• DOI: 10.1002/gps.930091208

✦ Synopsis

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.