Psychological consequences of the 1999 earthquake in Turkey.
We explored the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its relation to demographic characteristics and other risk factors for developing PTSD in a large sample (N = 910) of earthquake survivors living in tent city. Twenty-five percent of the sample met DSM-IV criteria for PTSD assessed with the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Self Test (PTSD-S). Peritraumatic factors explained the most variance when the risk factors were grouped as demographics, pretraumatic, peritraumatic, and posttraumatic. The study emphasized that PTSD among the earthquake victims was as prevalent in Turkey as after disasters in other developing countries but higher than usually found after disasters in developed countries, and there was a relation between some factors-mostly peritraumatic-and PTSD.
Tural
Umit
U
Department of Psychiatry, Medical School of Kocaeli University, Derince - Izmit, Turkey. turalu@kou.edu.tr
Coşkun
Bülent
B
Onder
Emin
E
Corapçioğlu
Aytül
A
Yildiz
Mustafa
M
Kesepara
Coşkun
C
Karakaya
Işik
I
Aydin
Mustafa
M
Erol
Ayla
A
Torun
Fuat
F
Aybar
Gaye
G
D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003710:Demography; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D004190:Disasters; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology*; D014421:Turkey