Cognitive-behavioral intervention for young tsunami victims.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of the cognitive-behavioral intervention provided to children by volunteer professionals in a tsunami-hit area in Thailand. The intervention was aimed to prevent the severe development of post traumatic stress symptoms, and to help the children who might recover spontaneously to do so more quickly. MATERIAL AND METHOD: One hundred and sixty children in Ranong province voluntarily participated in 2-days group activities on the 57h day after the tsunami. The manualized intervention had been designed based on cognitive-behavioral model. Three domains of post traumatic stress reactions were targeted, intrusion, arousal, and avoidance. The Children's Impact of Events Scale (13) (CRIES-13) was completed by the participants before and 2 weeks after the intervention. RESULTS: The program was generally well understood by the children. No difference in CRIES scores was observed before and after the children entered the intervention program. However when the sample was categorized into two groups, the group that was more likely to develop PTSD showed a significant reduction in the scores, whereas a significant increase in the scores was evident in the other group. CONCLUSION: The findings supported the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral intervention in the children who were prone to develop PTSD. The program needed to be adapted to suit the religious, socio-economic, and cultural background of the sample. The unchanged Avoidance scores in the present study were possibly explained by the general feeling that a tsunami might happen again and the parental involvement. The increase of post-intervention scores in otherwise normal sample, though not exceeding the cut-off raised some concern, and possibly the need for screening before the intervention.

Happiness and related factors in pregnant women.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Pregnancy is a crisis in the human life cycle as an important turning point in aspects of anatomical, physiological and psychosocial changes. An unhappy pregnanus could influence the fetal growth and development and sense of maternal competence as well as bonding with the fetus which profoundly affect the nurture of the infant after delivery. The authors'purposes were to study happiness and related factors in pregnant women having antenatal care at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Four hundred and thirty-eight pregnant women from the antenatal clinic at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital were randomly selected to complete a set of questionnaires that consisted of personal information, pregnant information, The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ), The Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI) and The Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS). Prevalence of happiness level was classified by descriptive analysis. Unpaired t-test, ANOVA and Pearson's Product Moment Correlation analyzed related factors to happiness in pregnant woman. Also Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis was used to define predictive factors for happiness in pregnant women. RESULTS: The sample had a high level of happiness of 57.3%. Significant related factors to happiness were age between 31-35 years, high education level, high individual and family income, having saving deposition, no drug abuse, improved marital relationship, no conflict with relatives, extrovert and stable personality types and no concerns about post-partum body image. Four predictive factors for happiness in pregnant women were extrovert personality, stable personality, high family income and improved marital relationship. CONCLUSION: Level of happiness in pregnant women could be predicted by type of personality, family income and marital relationship.