The authors examined who attends debriefings by looking at a study of the 1989 plane crash at Ramstein, Germany, and they examined the effect of natural debriefing, i.e., talking to family and friends on psychiatric outcome in disaster workers by looking at a study of the Sioux City, Iowa United plane crash, 1989. The researchers' data suggest that those with high exposure to the incident and females were more likely to attend a debriefing. People most likely to talk about the disaster with spouse/significant other, coworker and/or another person were: those with acute PTSD, higher total and intrusive Impact of Event symptoms, older, married, those with higher levels of education and higher levels of disaster exposure. Better understanding of who attends formal debriefings will help identify potential groups of high risk for outcome after trauma.

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Fullerton, C. Ursano, R.. Vance, K. Wang, L. “Debriefing Following Trauma.” Psychiatric Quarterly. Vol. 71 No. 3, Fall 2000.