Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Aftermath of Wars, Conflicts and Terrorism: Co-Relation between Countries GDP and Prevalence of PTSD

Abstract

Background: An estimated 1.6 trillion dollars per year is spent on defence, and as much as three times more people are killed by human made disasters, the reported prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among population exposed to human-made disasters varied across different countries. The global cost of mental illness is 2.5 trillion dollars, accounting for 37% of health loss years. Aim: Our aim was to investigate the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder across different region in population exposed to human-made disasters including war, conflicts and terrorist attacks. Another aim of our study was to investigate the correlation between prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder and economic performance indicators of individual countries, and percentage of GDP spend on health care. Method: The study was conducted in two stages. In stage 1 we conducted systematic literature search to establish prevalence of PTSD reported in context of human-made disasters from different countries. In stage we gathered economic performance reports and health care expenditure of respective countries. SPSS was used to identify any correlation between prevalence of PTSD, countries GDP, and percentage of GDP spend on health care expenditure. Results: The review identifies large variation in the prevalence of post- traumatic disorder in population exposed to human-made disasters, with prevalence estimates from 0.6 to 73%. It has been found that countries with poor socioeconomic structure and lower spending on health care expenditures were seen with high prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder. Conclusion: Difference in prevalence of PTSD can be explained by gender, marital status, and educational background of the participants and time of the study after exposure to traumatic event. But countries socioeconomic status and per capita GPD health care expenditure were found to be significantly correlated with the difference in prevalence of PTSD in population exposed to human-made disasters.