Psychological consequences of the March 11, 2004, terrorist attack in Madrid. General overview of the studies and results in general population

On the morning of March 11 of 2004, Madrid city suffered the most violent terrorist attack occurred in the modern European history. Ten bombs exploded in four commuter trains at morning rush hour, when many people went to Madrid downtown, resulted in 191 deaths and 1800 persons injured. After terrorist attacks, we started out three longitudinal studies with the aim of assessing the psychological impact of this event in the Madrid city population, and focused on: (1) general population, (2) victims and relatives, and (3) emergency personnel and rescue workers. Among other variables, it is explored the onset and evolution of different psychological pathologies such as panic attack, PTSD, and depression. In this study a representative sample of Madrid city residents of 1,589 subjects (1,265 residents of the 21 Madrid city districts plus an over-sampling of 324 residents in the affected areas) is addressed. Research design and telephone interview used in this study are similar to those employed by Galea et al. (2002) in the study of September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in NYC. Among psychopathological prevalence rates, there are remarkable data regarding the 10,9% of panic attack, the 8% of major depression, and the 4% of PTSD after March 11, and the 2,3% of PTSD directed attributable to terrorist attacks.