Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-20-2018
Publication Title
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health (CAPMH)
DOI
10.1186/s13034-018-0257-9
ISSN
1753-2000
Abstract
Background
Mental health issues can reach epidemic proportions in developed countries after natural disasters, but research is needed to better understand the impact on children and adolescents in developing nations.
Methods
A cross-sectional study was performed to examine the relationship between earthquake exposures and depression, PTSD, and resilience among children and adolescents in Phulpingdanda village in Nepal, 1 year after the 2015 earthquakes, using the Depression Self-Rating Scale for Children, Child PTSD Symptom Scale, and the Child and Youth Resilience Measure, respectively. To quantify exposure, a basic demographic and household questionnaire, including an earthquake exposure assessment tool for children and adolescents, was created.
Results
Of the 62 respondents interviewed, 3.23% and 4.84% displayed symptomatology of depression and PTSD. A large number of respondents interviewed scored high for resiliency (80.65%). All 62 respondents were displaced from their household and witnessed severe damage of both their homes and village. The number of earthquake exposures had a strong, positive correlation with PTSD symptomatology.
Conclusions
Although the number of respondents who showed signs of depression and PTSD symptomatology was lower than anticipated, resilience scores were considerably higher. Future research should explore which protective factors may contribute to high resiliency in Nepali children and adolescents.
Recommended Citation
Schwind, Jessica S., Clara B. Formby, Susan L. Santangelo, Stephanie A. Norman, Rebecca Brown, Rebecca Hoffman Frances, Elisabeth Koss, Dibesh Karmacharya.
2018.
"Earthquake Exposures and Mental Health Outcomes in Children and Adolescents From Phulpingdanda Village, Nepal: A Cross-sectional Study."
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health (CAPMH), 12 (54): BMC.
doi: 10.1186/s13034-018-0257-9
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/bee-facpubs/275
Included in
Asian Studies Commons, Biostatistics Commons, Environmental Public Health Commons, Epidemiology Commons
Comments
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.