NEW ORLEANS -- The oil spill ravaging the Gulf of Mexico has inflicted widespread psychological distress among coastal residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, etching scars even deeper than those whipped by Hurricane Katrina, according to a survey by Ochsner Health System, a nonprofit, academic healthcare delivery system. The survey of the four-state area, the first to measure mental health impacts after the explosion aboard BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast on April 20, found three in every 10 people surveyed (30 percent) suffer from "probable serious" or "probable mild-moderate" mental illness, based on the K6 psychological distress scale. The percentage of those suffering from serious mental illness varied, depending on location: Louisiana: 18 percent; Mississippi: 12 percent; Florida: 14 percent; Alabama: 10 percent. The percentage of Louisiana respondents afflicted with serious mental illness is double what it was among South Louisiana residents in July 2007, two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the state. "To see so many people mired in psychological misery and in worse shape than they were after Katrina is disheartening," said Dr. Joseph E. Bisordi, M.D., FACP, Ochsner's chief medical officer. "This benchmark ...
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