Post-traumatic stress disorder in survivors of bam earthquake

Subject Areas : روان درمانگری

Farahnaz NoorMohammadi ¹ , Fatemeh Ataei ²

1 - Islamic Azad University Central Tehran Branch
2 - M. A. in Educational

Received: 2015-06-05 Accepted : 2015-06-05 Published : 2009-09-23

Keywords: gender, post traumatic stress disorder, Bam earthquake, Impact of Event Scale,

Abstract :

Eight months after the destructive earthquake in Bam, the Impact of Event Scale (Horowitz et al., 1979) was given to a random selection of 129 women and 45 men, who had survived the disaster in order to assess the PTSD’s prevalence and two kinds of responses including intrusion and avoidance. Results indicated that, on average, 93.7% of the survivors suffered form PTSD with a high level of severity and showed the intrusion responses more than avoidance ones. There were no gender differences among participants in the prevalence of symptoms of PTSD and in avoidance and intrusion responses. The results were interpreted based on the Conservation of Resources theory and cultural differences.