Personal safety 'can impact on mental health'

Personal safety in the oil industry can have an impact on mental health in later life, according to a study of individuals involved in the North Sea oil rig disaster which saw the Alexander Kielland accommodation platform collapse.

Researchers writing in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease have spent 27 years studying the survivors of the 1980 disaster, as well as a control group matched with the oil rig workers but who did not experience the event.

After analysing the individuals at five months, 14 months, five years and 27 years from the date of the event, the scientists have determined a threefold increase in the risk of psychiatric disorder in those who lived through the catastrophe.

More than a fifth of those studied exhibited chronic psychopathology, with their innate personality and their personal safety record found to be risk factors in combination with one another.

"Trauma exposure and pre-disaster vulnerability factors were examined as predictors," the researchers write.

"Both ... are important predictors of chronic psychopathology," they conclude.