Children’s coping styles and trauma symptoms after an explosion disaster
Keywords:
children, disaster, coping strategies, trauma symptomsAbstract
Background: The negative impact of trauma on children and adolescents is well documented. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between coping and trauma and distress symptoms after man-made disasters, especially those not related to war. Objective: This study investigated the relationship between children’s coping styles and their self-reported levels of trauma and distress symptoms after an explosion disaster in a residential area. Method: Participants were recruited through the local public school that served the affected residential area. A total of 333 children and adolescents from grades 3 through 10 participated in the study 16 months after the explosion. All participants filled out questionnaires to assess their trauma and distress symptoms as well as their coping strategies. The adolescents answered additional questions about pre-, peri-, and post-traumatic factors and filled out questionnaires about their trauma and distress symptoms, including aspects of somatization and negative affectivity. Results: The following variables were associated with a higher degree of trauma symptoms for children in grades 6 through 10 and explained 39% to 48% of the unique variance in these symptoms: female gender; the experience of traumatic events pre-disaster; the destruction of property or danger to life occurring during the disaster; the experience of traumatic events post-disaster; and the use of self-blame, emotion regulation, wishful thinking, and cognitive restructuring. For the younger children, pre-, peri-, and post-disaster factors were not measured. However, female gender and the use of self-blame as a coping strategy explained 26% of the variance in trauma symptoms. Conclusions: This study generally supports the findings of the limited literature addressing coping skills after man-made disasters. However, contrary to previous findings in community samples after episodes of terrorism, adaptive coping strategies such as cognitive restructuring were found to influence the variance of trauma and distress symptoms.Downloads
Published
2016-12-16
How to Cite
Andersen, M. E., Elklit, A., & Duch, C. (2016). Children’s coping styles and trauma symptoms after an explosion disaster. Scandinavian Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, 4(3), 132–140. Retrieved from https://tidsskrift.dk/sjcapp/article/view/23345
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).