A new academic study warned that about half a million Israelis could potentially develop post-traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of the Hamas Oct. 7 massacres and ongoing war.
The figure corresponds to approximately 5% of the total Israeli population. In the U.S., that would translate to more than 15 million people.
The collaborative study was conducted by the Hebrew University of Yerushalayim, Columbia University, and the Israeli Shalvata Mental Health Center. It was was led by Dana Katsoty, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at Hebrew University, who explained how she organized the research.
The study predicted that 31% of Israelis who experienced the Oct. 7 massacres will eventually develop PTSD. Survivors of the Nova Music Festival, along with residents of southern Israeli communities affected by the Hamas invasion, are considered to be at particularly high risk.
“The festival attendees were in very difficult mental states,” explained Daniel Raz, Israel’s commissioner for Involuntary Hospitalization at the Ministry of Justice. “The survivors went into a turbulent mental state in light of the difficult experiences they went through and dealing with the unbearable loss. The Health Ministry is doing holy work, but there is no doubt that more needs to be done.”
NATAL, an Israeli organization assisting with terror-related trauma, reported a significant surge in calls for assistance in November, receiving about 15,000 requests since Oct. 7. That was 10 times the number of calls the organization typically receives in a month. Since then, the number of Israelis in need of mental health assistance has skyrocketed.
The challenge of dealing with the immense post-Oct. 7 trauma is further complicated by the fact that the Israeli public mental health system was already understaffed and underfunded.
“Even before the outbreak of war, the public mental health system was significantly deficient, which was visible through, among other things, repeated claims of a significantly lacking budget, a lack of personnel, long waiting times for psychotherapeutic or psychiatric treatment, and poor infrastructure in mental health hospitals,” the Knesset Health Committee said in a report.
“There has already been a significant increase in the demand for mental healthcare and assistance, and we anticipate a further increase,” said Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman Tov. “Effective and quick treatment may reduce the need for prolonged assistance by 50 percent.”
“It is important to note that [the 31%] is considered an underestimation, as such exposure is expected to result in higher PTSD probability,” she said.
Republished with permission of All Israel News.
{Matzav.com Israel}
