Psychological consequences of the 1999 earthquake in Turkey

Abstract

We explored the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its relation to demographic characteristics and other risk factors for developing PTSD in a large sample (N = 910) of earthquake survivors living in tent city. Twenty-five percent of the sample met DSM-IV criteria for PTSD assessed with the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Self Test (PTSD-S). Peritraumatic factors explained the most variance when the risk factors were grouped as demographics, pretraumatic, peritraumatic, and posttraumatic. The study emphasized that PTSD among the earthquake victims was as prevalent in Turkey as after disasters in other developing countries but higher than usually found after disasters in developed countries, and there was a relation between some factors-mostly peritraumatic-and PTSD.

Risk Factors for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Haitian Students

“…As mentioned before, there are multiple factors that would place the Haitian student population in the Dominican Republic at a higher risk level, such as being a minority in the country (Brewin et al, 2000), coming from and living in an underdeveloped country (Tural et al, 2004), which could explain why our results are higher than the ones observed by other authors.…”

“…It is possible that various factors affecting this particular group are responsible for the high prevalence of PTSD symptoms found. The effect of being from a developing country (Tural et al, 2004), having minority status in the country were the study was conducted (Brewin, Andrews, & Valentine, 2000), as well as living far from their families (Parvaresh & Bahramnezhad, 2009), cannot be denied.…”

“…Each of these events can cause the emotional reaction associated with PTSD (APA, 2000). Tural et al (2004) explain how the closeness of danger, of being hurt, the level of damage of buildings exposed to the earthquake, being trapped under the rubble, the death of a family member or seeing a dead body are all factors associated with the development of PTSD, while participating in rescue or being alone during the earthquake are not.…”

“…4% -8%) being found after natural disasters such as floods, volcano eruptions, landslides and tornadoes (McMillen, North, & Smith, 2000). Some of the reports provided by Tural et al (2004) suggest that PTSD is more common in developing countries, with a higher risk for severe and very severe deterioration in developing countries as compared to the United States (78% vs. 25%). It is thought that developed countries, like Australia and the United States, have a lower prevalence of the disorder because they have the infrastructure for the prevention of devastations and are better organized at pre and post event, with rescue teams and rescue rates superior to those found in developing countries (Salcioglu, Basoglu, & Livanou, 2007).…”

Does disaster affect immigrant victims more than non-immigrant victims in Dutch general practice: a matched cohort study

“…The significant decrease in respiratory symptoms in Turkish victims in the first post-disaster year may be related with the finding that the Turkish already had a high predisaster level of these symptoms, higher than the Dutch victims. However, respiratory symptoms were not found among the health effects of large-scale earthquakes on Turkish victims Basoglu et al 2004;Kilic and Ulusoy 2003;Livanou et al 2002;Tural et al 2004). Only one disaster study on Turkish victims found "trouble in getting breath" as a somatisation symptom (Karanci and Rustemli 1995), and we may not conclude, therefore, that the decrease in respiratory symptoms was culturally influenced, since so little is known about this as a disaster-related finding.…”