Is psychological adaptability needed for high school students in disaster-prone areas of Mount Merapi Eruption?

Abstract

One of the disaster events that has a clear cycle is the eruption of Mount Merapi. Despite having a clear cycle, students are still one of the vulnerable groups during the eruption of Mount Merapi. The vulnerability of students will ultimately affect the psychological condition of students. Many researchers have found that the psychological condition of students who experience a disaster will return to normal in a long period of time, around 4-5 years. Therefore, this study aims to determine whether psychological adaptation skills are needed for high school students in areas prone of the Mount Merapi. The case study design was used in this study to determine students’ perceptions of their psychological adaptability. The number of respondents used was 364 students that spread across 15 high schools and located in disaster-prone areas 1 to 3 of Mount Merapi. Questionnaires were used as a data collection technique, and data analysis was carried out using descriptive analysis. The analysis result shows that about 56.20% of respondents feel the need to have disaster adaptation capabilities. The existence of disaster adaptation is expected to help respondents who do not know good stress management when dealing with the eruption of Mount Merapi. Psychological disaster adaptation will affect the readiness of students t deal with disasters. The existence of psychological adaptation will encourage high school students to become a generation that is resilient to disaster because with psychological adaptation, students will more easily adjust their psychological conditions when a disaster occurs.