Science Source

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