Self-help and mutual assistance in the aftermath of a tsunami: How individual factors contribute to resolving difficulties.

Motoaki Sugiura,Rui Nouchi,Akio Honda,Tsuneyuki Abe,Shosuke Sato,Toshiaki Muramoto,Fumihiko Imamura,Ryo Ishibashi,Md Nazirul Islam Sarker

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0258325

Motoaki Sugiura, Rui Nouchi + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258325

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Abstract

Self-aid and mutual assistance among victims are critical for resolving difficulties in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, but individual facilitative factors for such resolution processes are poorly understood. To identify such individual factors in the background (i.e., disaster damage and demographic) and personality domains considering different types of difficulty and resolution, we analyzed survey data collected in the 3-year aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. We first identified major types of difficulty using a cluster analysis of 18 difficulty domains and then explored individual factors that facilitated six types of resolution (self-help, request for help, help from family, help from an acquaintance, help through cooperation, and public assistance) of these difficulty types. We identified general life difficulties and medico-psychological difficulties as two broad types of difficulty; disaster damage contributed to both types, while some personality factors (e.g., neuroticism) exacerbated the latter. Disaster damage hampered self-resolution and forced a reliance on resolution through cooperation or public assistance. On the other hand, some demographic factors, such as being young and living in a three-generation household, facilitated resolution thorough the family. Several personality factors facilitated different types of resolution, primarily of general life difficulties; the problem-solving factor facilitated self-resolution, altruism, or stubbornness resolutions through requests, leadership resolution through acquaintance, and emotion-regulation resolution through public assistance. Our findings are the first to demonstrate the involvement of different individual, particularly personality, factors in survival in the complex social dynamics of this disaster stage. They may contribute to disaster risk mitigation, allowing sophisticated risk evaluation and community resilience building.

Highlights

Victims of natural disasters experience a variety of difficulties in the immediate aftermath, such as access to food, water, sanitation, and medical assistance, as well as psychological problems [1,2,3]
We explored individual background and personality factors that facilitate self-aid or mutual assistance in the immediate aftermath of a disaster considering different types of difficulty and Individual factors contributing to survival in the aftermath of a tsunami resolution
Disaster damage was an exacerbating factor for both difficulty types, and medico-psychological difficulties were affected by personality factors, with neuroticism and extraversion acting as exacerbating and mitigating factors, respectively

Summary

Introduction

Victims of natural disasters experience a variety of difficulties in the immediate aftermath, such as access to food, water, sanitation, and medical assistance, as well as psychological problems [1,2,3]. Understanding the individual factors that contribute to successfully resolving difficulties encountered is important for risk evaluation and for fostering citizens’ resilience during times of quiescence, namely, the mitigation stage [4]. The emphasis on this aspect is in line with the promotion of a people-centered, preventive approach to disaster risk management, as encouraged in the Sendai Framework 2015–2030 [8]. Various individual factors have been identified as risk factors, robust examination of disaster exposure and psychosocial resources (e.g., psychiatric pre-morbidity and personality) seems to be unique to the mental health literature [12,13,14] In both literatures, the contributions of several common individual factors such as age, sex, and education are controversial. Resolution through acquaintance (S11 and S12 Tables in S1 Results) Resolution through cooperation (S13 and S14 Tables in S1 Results) Resolution through public assistance (S15 and S16 Tables in S1 Results)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion