Several limitations should be noted. First, several surveys had unacceptably low response rates. Second, TEs and mental disorders were assessed retrospectively, although special recall probes used in WMH surveys have been shown experimentally to improve retrospective recall accuracy (Knauper et al. 1999). Third, diagnoses were based on a fully structured lay-administered interview rather than semi-structured clinical interviews, although WMH clinical appraisal data are reassuring (Haro et al. 2006). Fourth, given that disasters were only one of many TEs assessed in the WMH surveys, information on potentially important predictors of post-disaster PTSD was much more limited than in surveys focused exclusively on disaster survivors.
