Single-day Psychoeducational Program for Children after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011
*Corresponding Author: Naru Fukuchi, Miyagi Disaster Mental Health Care Center, Miyagi, Japan
Copyright: © 2019 . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background: When Japan was struck by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, about 20,000 people died and more than 400,000 were left homeless, including almost 100,000 children. While most of these children showed psychological symptoms of trauma, many could not receive appropriate care because of a lack of mental health professionals in rural areas. Aim: This study had two aims. The first was to identify whether camps offering brief psychoeducation were effective in relieving the distress of children who experienced the 2011 disaster. The second was to evaluate the effectiveness of brief training for community workers and laypeople in rural areas, delivered by a trained child psychiatrist. Methods: We evaluated an intervention consisting of single-day camps, followed by continuous, culturally appropriate psychoeducation, facilitated for children who experienced the disaster. Their adult caregivers participated in a psychoeducational program aimed at providing them with support and guidance related to the care of their children. Camp facilitators were recruited from existing networks in the community, including non-mental health professionals, and were trained by a child psychiatrist to support affected children. Results: Our results showed a statistically significant improvement in psychological symptoms among participants. We further found that training of nonprofessionals might be effective in the recovery of child mental health in areas where there is a lack of mental health resources. Conclusion: Our results indicate that a brief psychoeducational intervention after a disaster is effective in improving children’s psychological distress. It is possible that community bonding plays a vital role in community-wide mental health recovery, regardless of whether formal mental health resources exist or not.
