Responses Over Time of Child and Adolescent Survivors to the 2008 Wenchuan, China Earthquake
The posttraumatic psychological symptoms of 188 child and adolescent survivors were investigated at 2 stages after the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China, using the Mental Health Scale (Wo & Liu, 2003) and the Coping Scale (Xiao & Xu, 1996). Results showed that the survivors'
mental health and coping styles were significantly different at each stage. Compared to 1 year after, 2 weeks after the earthquake, participants had more severe psychosomatic symptoms in the following items: compulsive reexperiencing, escaping, sensitive, indifferent, easily angry, suicidal,
felt guilty, easily fearful, lack of interest, inefficacy, insomnia, decreased appetite, avoiding problems, fantasy, self-blaming, and rationalization. Boys scored higher than girls in the felt lonely and asking for help items in the second week, while girls scored higher than boys in the
sensitive, depressed, self-blaming, and rationalization items 1 year after the earthquake. Results suggest that psychologists and social workers should focus on children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic stress and provide them with appropriate mental health interventions.
Keywords: ADOLESCENTS; CHILDREN; COPING STYLES; EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS; MENTAL HEALTH
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 August 2012
- The Journal's core purpose is scientific communication in the disciplines of Social Psychology, Developmental and Personality Psychology
- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Submit a Paper
- Subscribe to this Title
- Terms & Conditions
- Contact the Publisher
- Search
- Manuscript Guidelines
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content