Survivor narratives of the Oklahoma City bombing: The story over time

Abstract

The growing disaster psychiatry research literature has focused on posttraumatic stress disorder, producing little insight into subjective disaster experience. Qualitative research, especially narrative analysis, may provide in‐depth exploration of individual disaster experience and efforts to make meaning of it. Disaster narratives were collected from a random sample of 182 Oklahoma City bombing survivors 6 months after the disaster and again from 141 survivors nearly 1 year later. These narratives were examined for the evolution of recurring themes and their content over time. The content followed a natural time structure, encompassing phases of the bombing experience that were organized into three overarching categories containing individual themes: (a) experience of the bomb blast including themes of sensory experience and cognitions, (b) immediate aftermath including themes of structural damage, helping others, escape and physical injury, and (c) later reflections. The general content and focus of the narratives changed minimally between the baseline and follow‐up interviews, but there was considerable compression of detail in the follow‐up interviews. Narrative details demonstrating consistency across time may represent the most salient meaning derived from the disaster experience. These findings have potential applicability to therapeutic interventions for working with survivors of terrorism and other disasters.

A Qualitative Longitudinal Study of Injuries and Medical Care, Assistance, and Losses Recounted by Oklahoma City Bombing Survivors after Nearly a Quarter Century

“…This study's open-ended interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed rather than the simple paraphrasing of responses to questions recorded by hand by interviewers used in earlier research on survivors of this disaster that may have missed important information and introduced error. 18,23 Using these qualitative methods, this study provided extensive detail of survivor disaster experiences pertaining to personal medical and emotional effects, medical care, assistance, and losses from the survivors' own point of view nearly a quarter century after the bombing.…”

A Qualitative Longitudinal Study of Workplace Issues, Authorities and Media, and Relationships Recounted by Oklahoma City Bombing Survivors After Nearly a Quarter Century

“…A methodological advantage of this study is that the open-ended interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed rather than the paraphrases recorded by hand by interviewers that may overlook important information and introduce error. 16,17 The random sampling with 71% baseline participation rates and 72% follow-up of nondeceased survivors in this study was an important strength, with little evidence of potential attrition bias. Cessation of employment at the prebombing workplace likely had no effect on follow-up attrition, as the follow-up enrollment was conducted independent of the workplace by following up a baseline cohort selected from a state bombing registry.…”

“…Qualitative data allowing participants to speak their minds freely and spontaneously are virtually nonexistent so long after a terrorist incident. A methodological advantage of this study is that the open-ended interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed rather than the paraphrases recorded by hand by interviewers that may overlook important information and introduce error 16,17 . The random sampling with 71% baseline participation rates and 72% follow-up of nondeceased survivors in this study was an important strength, with little evidence of potential attrition bias.…”

Making meaning of disaster experience in highly trauma-exposed survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing.

“…This study used a modified phenomenological approach similar to methods previously used by members of this team as described in several publications (Dang et al, 2021;Johnson et al, 2017;North et al, 2013North et al, , 2014North et al, , 2015. For this study, the focus was on the ways in which survivors made positive or negative meaning of the disaster and its consequences, rather than taking an entirely open-ended approach to investigate their experiences more broadly.…”