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Children experiencing a major disaster at a distance or indirectly through media exposure demonstrated worries and PTS symptoms suggesting that communities need to attend to children's mental health needs in response to national or regional disasters. Pre-disaster symptomatology or low self-regulation may render children more vulnerable in response to a disaster, and immediate post-disaster responses predict subsequent symptomatology. These variables might be used in the identification of children in need of intervention.

Recommendations for future work in this area of assessment are presented, including suggestions that further validation and exploration of measure properties such as factor analysis and changes in HRQOL over time be conducted.