A US study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research has argued that while it had been thought that police officers were more generally resilient to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than other workers following the New York terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, in fact, they suffered elevated rates of functional difficulties.
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Although both male and female officers were less likely to suffer from PTSD, 15.4% showed symptoms of sub-syndromal PTSD, which is a lower level of the disorder but is nevertheless linked to higher rates of other psychiatric disorders.
Lead author Dr Robert H Pietrzak, of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, said: “Current screening and diagnostic criteria for disaster-related PTSD may be too restrictive in identifying the full complement of police who have clinically significant psychiatric and functional difficulties after responding to a mass disaster.”
