Impacts of Natural Disaster on Children: Development of the ‘MAIN’ as Inventory

Abstract

Children are the most vulnerable victims during natural disaster and majority are neglected from aspect of psychosocial support. A 6.0 magnitude earthquake of June 5, 2015 in Sabah resulted in 18 fatalities, among them 12 year-olds schoolchildren, and disrupted normality of lives. This study investigated impacts of natural disaster on school children. The MAIN (acronym for Measurement of Adverse effect INventory) was developed to collect the required data and consisted two sets of measurement. The first set are instruments assessing children posttraumatic stress disorder symptom (PTSD), and preparedness / awareness of both children and related authorities. The second set consisted of initiative game modules that examine problem solving skills and heart rate (HR) responses during simulated situations. Respondent were 100 school children and 50 mixed populations. Results of the quantitative and qualitative data were triangulated. Low levels of PTSD but high levels of empathy were displayed. Adequate contingency plans and designated emergency centres were needed, A disaster risk education and training drills were proposed, as embedded into existing curriculum. HR variability occurred dependent on positions of the player. And both types of audio interventions significantly decreased the HR to normal levels faster than no interventions procedure. © 2019, Indian Journal of Public Health Research and Development.