(A196) Psychological Distress, Quality of Life and Post-Traumatic Stress among Tsunami Affected People with Disabilities

Abstract

The study investigated psychological impact of tsunami of men and women with disabilities two years after the tsunami disaster. A total of 248 tsunami affected people with disabilities aged between 16 to 85 years were included in the final sample. And the sample consisted of 132 males with the men age 37.9 years, and 116 females with the men age 40.6 years. SRQ (psychological distress), IES (post-traumatic stress), WHO- DAS (psychosocial disability functioning) and QOL (quality of life) were administered. In addition to scale administration to 248 people, formal discussions were held with 27 mentally retarded people and their guardians/parents, thus making the total sample of 275. Main effects of gender were found significant on IES i.e. post-traumatic stress and main effects of type of disability was found significant on physical QOL, psychological QOL, and post-traumatic stress. Main effects of severity of disability was found significant on all variables. t-tests have been found out to study the inter group differences. All findings have been discussed in the light of supporting studies and theories. Long-term psychosocial and psychiatric interventions are suggested to be provided till the reconstruction and rebuilding phase continues, however, the challenge still remains for the strategy of mainstreaming disabled specific designed interventions within the community based psychosocial care services framework.