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According to the most comprehensive survey yet completed of mental health among Hurricane Katrina survivors from Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the proportion of people with a serious mental illness doubled in the months after the hurricane compared to a survey carried out several years before the hurricane.

The study also found that thoughts of suicide did not increase despite the dramatic increase in mental illness.

The authors suggest that this low rate of suicide thoughts is due to optimistic beliefs about the success of future recovery efforts.

The research, led by investigators from Harvard Medical School (HMS), will be published today in a special online edition of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/bulletin/en/.

"The increase in mental illness among Katrina survivors is not surprising, but the low suicidality is a surprise," says Ronald Kessler, PhD, professor of health care policy at HMS and lead author of the study.

To estimate the influence of Hurricane Katrina on the mental health of survivors, the researchers compared results of the post-Katrina survey with a survey carried out several years earlier that used the same assessment of mental illness.

The earlier survey was the 2001-03 National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R), taken every 10 years to assess the mental health of the country.

A weight was applied to the survey to adjust for observed differences between respondents and non-respondents, as non-respondents tended to have somewhat higher levels of trauma exposure and hurricane-related psychological distress.

The team discovered a strong relationship between the comparatively low rate of suicide thoughts and the existence of positive cognitions among Katrina survivors, especially with cognitions regarding increased sense of meaning and purpose in life and increased realization of inner strengths.

For mentally ill post-Katrina survey respondents who did not endorse these cognitions, the prevalence of suicide thoughts was comparable to the prevalence in the NCS-R.

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