Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESHealth Problems in Children and Adolescents Before and After a Man-made Disaster
Section snippets
Participants
All FPs (N = 60) in the city of Enschede were asked to participate in the study. Sixteen FPs (27%) did not participate (mainly because of the expected increase in workload); 89% of all disaster victims appeared to be registered at the 44 participating FPs. To identify nonvictims (controls), a random sample was taken from the patients of the participating FPs who were not recorded as victims. This resulted in 20,055 patients who were registered with the participating FPs on the day of the
Children 4-12 Years Old at the Time of the Disaster
Before the disaster, victims and controls were similar in the number of psychological problems presented to the FP (Table 1). The prevalence rate of psychological problems of the 4- to 12-year-old victims increased dramatically in the first year postdisaster (from 23/1,000 predisaster to 209/1,000 postdisaster). In the second year, the prevalence of these problems decreased significantly but remained more than three times higher than before the disaster. The number of psychological problems
DISCUSSION
The aims of the present study were to examine the health problems children and adolescents presented to their FPs before and after exposure to a man-made disaster and to compare these health problems with those of a control group. In addition, risk factors for postdisaster psychological problems were identified. It was found that psychological problems in particular were increased among the victims compared with both predisaster data and controls. During the first year postdisaster, the number
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The study was funded by a grant obtained from the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sports in the Netherlands.
Disclosure: The authors have no financial relationships to disclose.