Frequency and severity of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and efficacy of mental health intervention in children and young adults from a rural region in Chaharmahal and Bakhtyari Province, Safilan

Disasters cause disability, economic burden and death, annually. The casualties following the catastrophes such as earthquake, hurricane, and etc. leads to stress, anxiety, depression, and somatizaten. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one of these complications occurred after the unpleasant events. One of these events was happened in a rural region in Chaharmahal and Bakhtyari province, Safilan. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the frequency of post disaster psychologic complication in the children of the area and the effect of mental health intervention on them. This is a quasi-experimental study in which all children aged 5-15 years from this region who experienced this event were interviewed. The face to face interview was performed with the parents of the children and the Yoll questionnaire was filled immediately after the event. Subsequently, the psychologic interventions including psychological re-explanation, recognition of social thinking and treatment mechanisms were used for two weeks through 4 seasons. Repeatedly, five months after the event, the same procedures were performed. Results were analyzed with paired t-test, independent t-test and ANOVA. In the first round of measurement, the mean score of PTSD was 61.14±15.03, and in the 2nd time it was 48.19±9.6 (p<0.001). This score in the age groups of 5-10 and 10-15 years was 54.26±13.8 and 65.5±14.3, respectively before the intervention (p<0.05) and was 43±5.7 and 51±10.28, respectively after that (p<0.01). This difference was not sex dependent. Analysis of variance showed that with increasing education, score of PTSD significantly was increased and using Tukey test, it was shown that the difference was significant between the two level of education (p<0.01). The results of this study showed the effect of hygienic interventions and educations in the problem faced. Therefore, use of preventive mechanisms in all 3 preventive levels is essential in the case of this event.