Perceptions of Life Threat Can Cause Long-Term Distress

Perceptions about one’s safety during a disaster—even from a distance—can leave emotional scarring and long-term issues with mental health.

These findings are part of a study that focused on 1,500 residents of Stockholm who had been in the disaster area during the 2004 tsunami that occurred in the Indian Ocean. Surprisingly, some of those displaying signs of long-term mental distress had not been affected directly by either self harm or harm to friends and family.

“A difficult experience can lead to an excess of feelings and impressions. This is normal and can be seen as a sign that the mind and body need time to work through what happened,” said Dr. Lars Wahlström of the Crisis and Disaster Psychology Unit at the Center for Family and Community Medicine (CeFAM) in Stockholm.

Part of the doctoral thesis “Disaster and Recovery,” conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, researchers had participants—all over 15 years of age—fill out a questionnaire regarding their experiences 14 months after the incident.

Results revealed that 30 percent of those interviewed were still experiencing symptoms that included post-traumatic reactions, mood disturbances or sleep issues. Of those still experiencing mental health issues, 20 percent had not been directly affected, but they had perceived their presence and experience in the region as life-threatening.

“It would seem that the very experience of threat to life leaves traces,” Wahlström said, adding that survivors of disasters could possibly be better evaluated for potential long-term effects by asking more pointed questions about their perceptions. “It might be enough for a nurse at the emergency ward to sit down for a moment and ask what the survivor has been through and how the experience felt. After survivors’ first reactions have subsided, at the latest within a month, those who felt a threat to life should be contacted again to find out how they are doing.”

Doctoral thesis: “Disaster and recovery,” Lars Wahlström, Karolinska Institute