Women Widowed in the Disaster: A Psychosocial Perspective

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to bring about the psychosocialaspects of women widowed in the Tsunami disaster inIndia. The research used a descriptive research design. Of214 widows, nearly 107 of them who lost their spouses inthe Tsunami (Study Group) and the women widowedprior to the Tsunami disaster for varied causes (ControlGroup) were interviewed for the study using simplerandom sample technique. Disability AssessmentSchedule (WHO DAS, 2001), Self Reporting Questionnaire(SRQ, WHO, 1994) were used along with semi structuredinterview schedule to gather socio demographic details.The results indicate that the psychological distress andthe disability of the women widowed in the disaster arehigher than the women who were widowed prior to theTsunami. These results guide us to provide psychosocialinterventions to the vulnerable groups of women amongother vulnerable groups in the disaster mental health programmes.