Abstract
Predictive factors including risk perception for mid-term mental health after a nuclear disaster remain unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between perceived radiation risk and other factors at baseline and mid-term mental health after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 2011 in Japan. A mail-based questionnaire survey was conducted in January 2012 and January 2013. Mental health status was assessed using the K6 scale. Psychological distress over the 2-year period was categorized into the following four groups: chronic, recovered, resistant, or worsened. Most participants (80.3%) were resistant to the disaster. A positive association was found between the radiation risk perception regarding immediate effects and the worsened group in women. Baseline post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or a history of psychiatric disease predicted being in the chronic or worsened group in mid-term course. These results suggest that evacuees who believed that their health was substantially affected by the nuclear disaster were at an increased risk of having poor mid-term mental health in women. Careful assessment of risk perception after a nuclear disaster, including the presence of PTSD or a history of psychiatric disease, is needed for appropriate interventions.
Highlights
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common psychiatric reaction to disaster, depression, which often coexists with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [1], is important because it may lead toInt
Because there are no well-designed longitudinal studies regarding associations between perceived radiation risk and other predictive factors at baseline and mid-term mental health problems after a nuclear disaster, we examined the association between the perception of radiation risk and other predictive factors at baseline and mid-term mental health after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster using longitudinal data from the large-scale Fukushima Health Management Survey [27]
We found that the degree of perceived radiation risk predicted the degree of worsening mental health status after the disaster, multivariate analysis revealed that the association between perceived radiation risk regarding immediate effects and the worsened group remained significant among only women after controlling for individual and disaster-related factors
Summary
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common psychiatric reaction to disaster, depression, which often coexists with PTSD [1], is important because it may lead toInt. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common psychiatric reaction to disaster, depression, which often coexists with PTSD [1], is important because it may lead to. Res. Public Health 2017, 14, 1067; doi:10.3390/ijerph14091067 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph. Res. Public Health 2017, 14, 1067 suicidal ideation. Because the prevalence of psychological morbidity including depression and anxiety typically decrease after a disaster [2,3,4], being able to predict the worsening of mental health problems among sufferers is important in order to provide appropriate care and support from the early phase
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