Saturday April 13 2024: Jerusalem Post: October 7 and the Gaza War has put a heavy burden on Israel’s social workers.
During the war, the population in need of social worker assistance grew significantly—in the hotels housing the evacuated, in treatment centers, and in various settlements throughout the country.
The Post went on to say: Israel’s welfare service system suffers from serious under-budgeting, a shortage of skilled manpower, and unequal distribution of resources across cities, according to a new study at Jerusalem’s Taub Center for Social Policy Studies.
Researcher Shavit Ben-Porat from the Taub Centre said: “following the events of October 7 and the war, hundreds of thousands more people who are in need of professional support and assistance have been added to the workload of social workers. For them to provide adequate support, a significant addition is needed in the budget allocated to the social services system and in the number of social workers in the national welfare service system."
Meanwhile, new data released recently reported the shocking rate of depression and anxiety disorders among children and teenagers. A study in the journal Pediatrics reported an increase in the rate of depression among children, twice as much among girls. Similarly, an Israeli expert reported a significant increase in depression in Israel that has worsened since October 7.
The first data on an increase in the rate of depression and anxiety disorders among children began to appear in the first year of covid. Parents and children reported feeling worry, sadness, loneliness, anxiety, and depression. In Israel, an alarming increase in depression has been observed in recent years. A survey by the Haruv Institute from the first two months of 2020 reported that about a quarter of children expressed great concern for their physical health, their education, and their family's economic status.
The same year, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics found that about a quarter of parents reported a negative emotional change in their children as a result of the first unnecessary Government lockdown. Data shows that in 2020, the number of children who started medication for depression or anxiety increased almost threefold compared to the year before.
The Pediatrics study reported that data that surveyed about a quarter of a million people, prescriptions for antidepressants were given to 65% of the girls and 36% of the boys.
The distribution of medicine was accelerated as of March 2020 at a rate of 130% among girls aged 12-17, and increased by 57% among girls aged 18-25. The rate of use among boys and girls remained at 36% and did not change. Researchers pursued additional studies to examine why the use of antidepressants did not increase among boys, despite data that showed an increase in sadness, hopelessness, and suicide attempts among adolescent boys.
Mental Health experts say that Israel has been plunged into a mental health crisis by the Hamas attacks of Oct 7, with the population reeling from anxiety and depression and at risk of post-traumatic stress disorder.
A study published in the Lancet medical journal in 2024 said "all citizens in Israel were, in some fashion, exposed to this attack of unprecedented scope and traumatic impact". "It reflects a mass national trauma," said the study, co-authored by clinical psychologist Yossi Levi-Belz, which looked at PTSD, depression and anxiety rates after the attack and found "a broad and significant impact" on the mental health of Israeli's.
In the three months since the Israel-Hamas war began with the terror group’s deadly attack, the mental stress of Israeli's has “skyrocketed” while the population is less active and sleeping less, according to a recent Tel Aviv University study.
“Approximately 23% of adult Jewish Israelis who were not directly exposed to the horrors of October 7 suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (compared to 4.5% who were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder before the outbreak of the war),” the researchers found.
They also find that after the events of October 7, “about 55% of adult Israelis suffer from clinical anxiety at various levels, and about 23% suffer from clinical anxiety at a moderate to high level.”
Using data from about 5,000 smartwatch users, the researchers also find that since the beginning of the war there is a “significant decrease in the reported mood level, in physical activity as reflected in the number of daily steps, and in the reported quality of sleep, which was accompanied by a significant increase in time awake.”
The study published in the Lancet’s “EClinicalMedicine 2023,” found the prevalence of probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety in the weeks following the Hamas terror attacks (at 29% for PTSD) 42% for depression, and 44% for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) respectively, almost double the prevalence recorded two months before the war.
“The prevalence's of PTSD, depression, and anxiety are considerably higher than those reported in previous studies focusing on terrorist events, such as the 9/11 attacks and other attacks,” noted clinical psychologist Prof. Yossi Levi-Belz, who chairs the Lior Tsfaty Center for Suicide and Mental Pain Studies at the Ruppin Academic Center, Israel and led the study.
The team found that the traumatic events had a more considerable impact on those already struggling with psychological difficulties. Specifically, the findings show that one of the robust predictors of psychological burden in the aftermath of the attack was the presence of pre-October 7 symptoms of probable PTSD, depression, and GAD.
Suffering from PTSD symptoms before the attack was found to double the risk of probable PTSD. These findings suggest the role that pre-attack psychological symptoms may have had in increasing the risk of short-term PTSD beyond demographic risk factors and direct exposure to the attack.
Martin Blackham Israel First TV Program www.israelfirst.org