Age was studied in an adult group of victims in the study of an air show disaster referred to above, which was controlled for pre-disaster symptoms.
The present study has a strong design with pre-disaster data being used as a baseline measurement; as Norris stated in her review [ 1]: 'controlling for pre-disaster symptoms when assessing the effects of exposure yields the strongest design possible in this field of research'.
Why would children's post-disaster internalizing symptoms but not their PTSD symptoms be related to family dysfunction?
This study aimed to identify predictors of 6 months post-disaster stress symptoms and to study 6 months and 24 months course of symptoms among Norwegian tourists who experienced the 2004 tsunami.
The significant association, however, is probably due to an overlap of post-disaster psychiatric symptoms, which are known to be a conglomeration of PTSD, depression and anxiety symptoms [ 7].
Since our study is the first that shows the independent relation between disaster exposure and symptoms of PTSD, while controlling for baseline symptoms, we can only speculate about the underlying mechanism.
The relation between disaster exposure and symptoms of distress and PTSD was mediated by symptoms of distress and PTSD at an earlier point in time.
The association between the degree of disaster exposure and symptoms of PTSD at waves 2 and 3 was still statistically significant after controlling for symptoms of distress and PTSD at earlier point in time.
Content provided to Haitian HST volunteers included information on basic disaster mental health symptoms and evidence-based recovery practices.
This study shows a positive and independent relation between degree of disaster exposure and symptoms of PTSD until 4 years after the disaster.
Table 6 shows the association between the degree of disaster exposure and symptoms of PTSD among survivors at wave 4, ten years post-disaster.
