Abstract
Being one of the world’s seismically hazard-prone countries, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) witnessed an 8.0-magnitude earthquake on May 12th 2008—which was reported as one of the most destructive disasters since its founding. Following this earthquake, rehabilitation was greatly required for survivors to enable them to achieve and maintain optimal independence; functioning; full physical, mental and social ability; inclusion; and participation in all aspects of life and environments. We conducted a systematic review based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to retrospectively identify, in five English databases/sources, the existing evidence about the Health-Related Rehabilitation (HRR) that was rendered to the survivors of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake between 2008 and 2018. Only 11 studies out of 828 initial studies retrieved were included in our study and reported the survivors of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake to have been aged between 10.5 and 55.7, and predominantly diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorders. Their HRR was mainly premised on physical and physiological therapies, as well as traditional Chinese medicine and digital technologies. Although all HRR interventions used were reported to be effective, none was identified as much more effective than the others in the post-earthquake era —which calls for more robust research to build upon our systematic review.
Highlights
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is one of the most seismic hazard-prone countries in the world given its location at the junction of the circum-Pacific seismic belt and the Mediterranean Himalayan seismic belt [1]
This review was conducted by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [30], to identify the existing evidence about the health-related rehabilitation (HRR) interventions which have been rendered to the survivors or victims of the 2008
The inclusion criteria of our systematic review focused on retrospectively identifying the studies of interest that reported the following: 1) injured survivors or victims who were negatively impacted in terms of physical, mental or psychological functioning, activity and participation limitation following the 2008 Wenchuan or 5.12 earthquake; 2) primary research studies that reported different Health-Related Rehabilitation (HRR) interventions or programs, for example, those based on physical, occupational and psychological therapies, traditional Chinese Medicine, education and non-Pharmaceutical therapy; 3) studies conducted within China, and with particular focus on the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake; and 4) studies published in English within the period between
Summary
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is one of the most seismic hazard-prone countries in the world given its location at the junction of the circum-Pacific seismic belt and the Mediterranean Himalayan seismic belt [1]. Almost all types of natural disaster have been reported in China with the exception of volcanic eruptions [1], including—among others—floods, droughts, landslides, mudslides and typhoons [1,4,5,6]. Earthquakes constitute one of the most deadly types of natural disaster, associated with adverse impacts whenever they occur in terms of mass fatalities, injuries, disabilities, morbidity, displacement, posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD), extensive property damage and devastating economic losses [2,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. On the afternoon of May 12th 2008, the earthquake of 8.0-magnitude (Mw)
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