John Prashantham Baddam, Russell Sushila, Russell Paul Swamidhas Sudhakar
Institute for Human Relations, Counselling and Psychotherapy, Christian Counselling Centre, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, Southern India.
Disaster Manag Response. 2007 Jan-Mar;5(1):3-7. doi: 10.1016/j.dmr.2006.11.001.
The Asian earthquake and subsequent tsunami of December 2004, one of the largest natural disasters in recent history, resulted in the deaths of over 250,000 people and massive destruction in 8 countries. As with any disaster, children are at risk for developing short- and long-term psychological consequences, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One area particularly affected by this disaster was southern India. Five hundred twenty-three juvenile survivors of the tsunami were studied to determine the prevalence of PTSD. The survey was conducted in 2 waves. Interviews were conducted by postgraduate psychiatric social work students, proficient in the local language of Tamil and trained in PTSD-related data collection. The Impact of Event Scale-8 items Tamil Version and Child Behaviour Checklist Post-traumatic Stress Disorder-Tamil Revised Version, with age-specific measures and validated for the local culture and language, were used for the study. Our study revealed a prevalence of 70.7% for acute PTSD and 10.9% for delayed onset PTSD. PTSD was more prevalent among girls and more severe among adolescents exposed to loss of life or property. These results indicate that PTSD is widely prevalent among the survivors of the tsunami, reinforcing the need to develop an effective, culturally sensitive outreach therapy strategy for them.
2004年12月发生的亚洲地震及随后的海啸是近代史上最严重的自然灾害之一,造成8个国家超过25万人死亡并带来了大规模破坏。与任何灾难一样,儿童面临着出现短期和长期心理问题的风险,包括创伤后应激障碍(PTSD)。印度南部是受这场灾难影响尤为严重的地区之一。对523名海啸少年幸存者进行了研究,以确定PTSD的患病率。调查分两波进行。访谈由精通当地泰米尔语且接受过PTSD相关数据收集培训的研究生精神病学社会工作专业学生进行。研究使用了泰米尔语版8项事件影响量表和儿童行为检查表创伤后应激障碍泰米尔语修订版,这些量表采用了针对特定年龄的测量方法,并针对当地文化和语言进行了验证。我们的研究显示,急性PTSD的患病率为70.7%,延迟性PTSD的患病率为10.9%。PTSD在女孩中更为普遍,在经历生命或财产损失的青少年中更为严重。这些结果表明,PTSD在海啸幸存者中广泛存在,这凸显了为他们制定一种有效且具有文化敏感性的外展治疗策略的必要性。