Effects of 7 July 'long-lasting'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/health/6510307.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Many Londoners were still feeling stressed and frightened months after the 7 July 2005 bombings, a study says.

Researchers quizzed 574 members of the public seven months after the attacks, which left 52 dead and 800 injured.

The King's College London team found 11% were "substantially stressed" and 43% thought their life was in danger, the British Journal of Psychiatry said.

However, the numbers experiencing these problems had fallen compared with an earlier survey just after the attacks.

We were struck by how difficult it was to predict which members of the general public would remain distressed following the bombings Dr Neil Greenberg, lead researcher

Lead researcher Dr Neil Greenberg, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said: "Clearly terrorist attacks can have psychological effects on the general pubic.

"Our study has enabled us to document the longer-term impact of terrorism on the perceptions and behaviour of Londoners, and to assess medium-term changes in psychological and behavioural responses to terrorism and the risk factors for the persistence of these effects.

"We were struck by how difficult it was to predict which members of the general public would remain distressed following the bombings."

He said support services needed to be aware that psychological problems could persist for a long time after the event - even for those not directly involved.

Long-term impact

The team found that 11% of Londoners questioned reported "substantial stress", 43% believed their own life was in danger and nine in 10 said London was likely to experience another attack.

This compared with the 31% reporting "substantial stress" 11 to 13 days after the attacks and 52% saying they felt their lives were under threat.

The earlier poll involved 1,010 Londoners, including all those quizzed second time around.

In the latest survey, one-fifth of the respondents, while recognising that security had been beefed up on transport, said that their concerns had led them to reduce the amount they travelled.

Liz Prosser, of 7 July Assistance, a support group offering counselling and legal help, said: "Attacks like 7 July can have a long-lasting impact. You don't need to have been at the scene.

"People just caught up in the chaos of the day phoned us for help and I think for people who just live and work in London there is a psychological impact."