Abstract
Purpose: The main aims of this study were to evaluate the quality of life of wildfire victims and compare it with that of a control sample of people unaffected by the disaster, and to identify confounder factors (previous psychiatric caseness, demographic factors and losses) which may influence the quality of life. Methods: This was a cross sectional case-control study. Participants belonged to an adult population which had taken part in a previous study 6 months after the disaster. The measured variables were: 1) quality of life using the WHOQOL-BREF measure, 2) previous psychiatric caseness as identified using the SCL-90-R and 3) demographics. Results: Victims of the wildfires had a statistically significant poorer quality of life in the three domains of physical health, psychological health, and environment compared to controls. After adjusting for other variables, the only difference between victims and controls was in the environment domain. Conclusions: Disasters have long lasting effects on victims. Psychological and physical health may improve after some time but environmental quality of life may need longer. However, it is not known yet if the environmental aspect of quality of life could affect other aspects such as psychological health or social relationships in the future.
Highlights
The psychosocial aspects of disasters have received increasing attention recently
Victims of the wildfires had a statistically significant poorer quality of life in the three domains of physical health, psychological health, and environment compared to controls
It was not possible to contact 33 of them and three more participants were excluded from the rest (367) as they did not answer the minimum number of questions that the WHOQOLBREF requires
Summary
The main aims of this study were to evaluate the quality of life of wildfire victims and compare it with that of a control sample of people unaffected by the disaster, and to identify confounder factors which may influence the quality of life. The aims of the study were 1) to examine the quality of life of the victims of the wildfires that occurred in 2007 in Greece, 2) to compare the quality of life of those affected by the disaster with the quality of life of those who were not and 3) to examine other factors which may have a significant effect on the quality of life. The study was approved by the Ministry of Health and informed consent was obtained from each participant. The purpose of this study was explained to the participants
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