title: Development of a self-administered questionnaire to assess the psychological competencies for surviving a disaster.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To find the psychological competencies for surviving a disaster and develop a self-report questionnaire to assess them.
  
  
  METHODS
  Interviews with 16 earthquake survivors and 16 fire fighters followed by qualitative analysis were used to find psychological competencies. Formation of the item pool, a pilot study among 20 college teachers and students, a series of principal component analyses for the data from 345 college students, and a confirmatory factor analysis for the data from 307 participants with various occupations were used to develop the Psychological Competencies for Surviving a Disaster Questionnaire (PCSDQ).
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found 4 psychological competencies: risk perception of a disaster, disaster knowledge and self-relief skills, low fear in a disaster, and sense of control over a disaster. The 24-item PCSDQ assessed these psychological competencies. The Cronbach alpha of PCSDQ subscales ranged from .75 to .87.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The psychological competencies for surviving a disaster were found to be risk perception of a disaster, disaster knowledge and self-relief skills, low fear in a disaster, and sense of control over a disaster. Using the PCSDQ to assess a person's psychological competencies for disaster survival will make it possible to provide that person with an individualized and targeted disaster self-relief education and/or training program.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Shandong University, China.
authors.forename: Danjun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong, China.
authors.forename: Linqin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ji
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004190:Disasters; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D036301:Qualitative Research; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057566:Self Report; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards; D055815:Young Adult