Trauma symptoms in children after the tsunami

Abstract

Limited research has examined factors associated with psychological distress following natural disasters among non-Western child populations. Conditions associated with trauma-related symptoms following the 2004 tsunami in a sample of 265 Sri Lankan child survivors (53.6% female, aged 3 to 17) were examined retrospectively. Multivariate regression analyses identified pre-traumatic conditions (female gender, prior health) and peritraumatic conditions (loss of family, complete property loss) as being associated with increased trauma-related symptoms. Findings can be applied to the identification of children most at risk of developing trauma-related symptoms following a natural disaster from a non-Western population to aid development of culturally-appropriate interventions.

Disaster and mental health: the role of Sri Lankan psychiatrists

“…Most of those are acute and self-limiting, but a certain proportion of disaster victims will go on to develop more severe and enduring conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and substance misuse (5). Prevalence rates of PTSD, depression, anxiety were 21%, 16% and 30% respectively among Sri Lankan adults and prevalence of PTSD among children was 19% -53.6% following the tsunami in 2004 (6)(7). A recent study done among survivors of the Aranayaka landslide in 2016 reported a 21% prevalence rate of depression (8).…”