ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To study the relationship of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to severity of the disaster experience. METHOD: A sample of 1785 adult participants of an epidemiological study initiated in the immediate aftermath of the 1988 earthquake in Armenia were interviewed about 2 years following the disaster based on the NIMH DIS-Disaster Supplement. All 154 cases of pure PTSD were compared with 583 controls without symptoms satisfying psychiatric diagnoses of interest. RESULTS: PTSD cases included more persons from areas with the worst destruction. Having the highest level of education compared to lowest (OR 0.6 [95% CI 0.4-0.9]), being accompanied at the moment of the earthquake (OR 0.6 [95% CI 0.4-0.9]) and making new friends after the earthquake (OR 0.6 [95% CI 0.5-0.8]) were protective for PTSD. PTSD risk increased with the total amount of loss to the family (OR for highest level of loss 4.1 [95% CI 2.3-7.5]). CONCLUSION: Based on this large population sample, we believe that early support to survivors with high levels of loss may reduce PTSD following earthquakes.
Subject(s)
Disaster Planning , Disasters , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/epidemiology , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology , Survivors/psychology , Adolescent , Adult , Armenia/epidemiology , Case-Control Studies , Emergency Services, Psychiatric , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Life Change Events , Male , Middle Aged , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales , Risk Factors , Severity of Illness Index , Socioeconomic Factors , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/diagnosisABSTRACT
To assess the relation of increased mortality and morbidity to personal loss and damage following the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, the authors conducted a prospective study of mortality and a nested case-control analysis of incident morbidity. Employees of the Armenian Ministry of Health and their immediate families (n = 35,043) who survived the disaster formed the study population. Two sets of interviews with the employees, carried out over a period of 4 years of follow-up, were used as the primary source of data for this study. The highest numbers of deaths from all causes and from heart disease were observed within the first 6 months following the earthquake. The nested case-control analysis of 483 cases of newly reported heart disease and 482 matched non-heart-disease controls revealed that people with increasing levels of loss of material possessions and family members had significant increases in heart disease risk (odds ratios for "loss scores" of 1, 2, and 3 were 1.3, 1.8, and 2.6, respectively). The findings were similar with regard to the relation of damage and loss to newly reported hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and arthritis. The findings of this study support the hypothesis that longer term increased rates of heart disease and chronic disease morbidity following an earthquake are related to the intensity of exposure to disaster-related damage and losses. People sustaining such losses should be closely monitored for increased long term morbidity.
