Use of Project Liberty counseling services over time by individuals in various risk categories

OBJECTIVE: The authors examined temporal changes in the rates at which people sought access to Project Liberty services after the attacks of September 11, 2001, according to risk category (family of missing or deceased, persons directly affected, uniformed personnel, other rescue or recovery workers, schoolchildren, displaced employed and unemployed workers, persons with disabilities, and the general population). METHODS: First visits to individual counseling services, as determined from logs of 465,428 service encounters, were proportioned among risk categories and plotted across 27 months. RESULTS: Individuals who lost family members accounted for 40 percent of visits in the first month but dropped to 5 percent or fewer visits by five months. Uniformed personnel used disproportionately larger percentages of services after the first year. Occupationally displaced and unemployed workers sought counseling at relatively steady rates. CONCLUSIONS: Postdisaster counseling should be made available for extended periods, with shifting emphases to meet the changing needs of high-risk groups.