Howard J. Osofsky, Joy D. Osofsky, Mindy Kronenberg, Adrianne Brennan, Tonya Cross Hansel

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry

Published date April 15, 2009

Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Children After Hurricane Katrina: Predicting the Need for Mental Health Services

  • Examines factors related to the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms in children and adolescents after Hurricane Katrina
  • Hypothesizes that a positive correlation would exist between trauma exposure variables and symptoms indicating need for mental health services experienced 2 years after Hurricane Katrina
  • Studies 7,258 children and adolescents from heavily affected Louisiana parishes
  • Administers the Hurricane Assessment and Referral Tool for Children and Adolescents developed by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network
  • Finds that results were generally supportive of hypotheses
  • Results show that 49.1% of students surveyed in the 2005-2006 school year and 41.6% of students surveyed in the 2006-2007 school year met the cut-off score for mental health referral