Page No.132-140
S.B. Raj and S. Subramony
Defence Institute of Psychological Research, New Delhi
The effect of tsunami of 26th December 2004, on the residents of the coastal
town of Nagapattinam, India was studied. The study was conducted on 134
adolescents (mean age =16) one month after the disaster. The affected group
(n=52) was defined as those who had experienced loss of life of family member(s),
and/or destruction of house due to the tidal waves. They were compared with a
group of unaffected adolescents (n=82) who were living 12 kms from the affected
area and had reported no loss of house or death of family member(s). The
perceived stress, and avoidance, intrusion, hyper arousal symptoms of PTSD
were assessed in their local language, Tamil. The affected and unaffected group
differed significantly on perceived stress while differences were not significant
for avoidance, intrusion, hyper arousal symptoms of PTSD. Gender differences
were significant for perceived stress, intrusion, hyper arousal, and IES-R.