Psychological Effects of Earthquake on Health Professionals: Investigation of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Related Factors

Abstract

Background: Earthquake is characterized as an event that can cause trauma. Earthquake Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is expressed as a disorder that basically causes intense anxiety in the individual and seriously impairs the functioning of the individual when the individual witnesses events such as death or serious injury. Aim: This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder among health professionals after the earthquake. Methods: The study was conducted on healthcare workers working at Malatya Training and Research Hospital after the February 2023 earthquakes. In the analyses conducted with SEM, the sample size is required to be 200 or more. Accordingly, 379 participants were recruited for the study. Results: The overall mean score of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale was calculated as 44.48, and the mean score of the Impact of Events Scale was calculated as 49.76. Re-experiencing scores had statistically significant effects on hyper arousal (β 1 = 0.808; P = 0.001), negative changes (β 1 = 0.651; P = 0.001), and avoidance (β 1 = 0.767; P = 0.001) scores. Avoidance scores had a statistically significant effect only on the negative changes score (β 1 = 0.149; P = 0.001). Conclusion: As a result of the research, the prevalence of long-term PTSD among healthcare workers living in the earthquake zone was determined as 46.7%. This result revealed that the effects of PTSD were widely seen even approximately 1.5 years after the earthquake disaster. It has been found that the recollection of events due to sudden trauma experienced by individuals affects post-traumatic stress disorder.