The Study and Comparison of Urban and Rural Families’ Post-Crisis Adaptation Needs

The purpose of this research was to study and compare the post-crisis adaptation needs of urban and rural families. Families living in Sarpolzab city and Dasht-e-Zahab villages who remained in their town and villages after the earthquake of Kermanshah and adjusted to their living conditions constituted the study population. In urban part, 380 families were selected by cluster random sampling, and in rural part, 300 rural families from 5 randomly-selected villages completed the research questionnaire. To measure the variable of adaptation needs, a researcher-made questionnaire, titled “Family Adaptation” was used which had three subscales of “family”, “spouse subsystem”, and “parent-child subsystem”. The validity coefficient of the questionnaire in the sample group was obtained equal to 0.868. The data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Variance. The results showed that there were significant differences in adaptation needs between urban and rural families. In the “family” subscale, security and belief-making needs were higher in priority for urban families than for rural families. In the spouse subscale, realistic needs of  urban spouses  were greater than the realistic needs of  rural spouses. In parent-child subscale, no significant difference was found between the needs of urban and rural families. Due to the different adaptation needs of urban and rural families, these needs can be focused in post-crisis support packages.