Trauma Functioning and Well-Being in Children Who Receive Mental Health Aid after Natural Disaster or War

Trauma Functioning and Well-Being in Children Who Receive Mental Health Aid after Natural Disaster or War

Background: There is worldwide consensus that providing secondary prevention to promote resilience and prevent mental health concerns after a disaster is important. However, data supporting this kind of intervention is largely lacking. The current study evaluates the effectiveness of OperationSAFE,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Children (Basel) Vol. 9; no. 7; p. 951
Main Authors: Simonds, Emily A, Gobenciong, Katrina Arlene P, Wilson, Jonathan E, Jiroutek, Michael R, Nugent, Nicole R, van Tilburg, Miranda A L
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 25-06-2022
MDPI
Subjects:
Adaptation
Analysis
Anxiety
Children and war
Clinical trials
Community
Curricula
Disasters
Early intervention
First aid
Information management
Mental depression
Mental health
mental health first aid
Natural disasters
Parents & parenting
pediatric mental health
pediatric trauma
Pediatrics
Post traumatic stress disorder
Psychological aspects
psychological first aid
Teenagers
psychological first aid
pediatric mental health
mental health first aid
pediatric trauma
mental health
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Summary:Background: There is worldwide consensus that providing secondary prevention to promote resilience and prevent mental health concerns after a disaster is important. However, data supporting this kind of intervention is largely lacking. The current study evaluates the effectiveness of OperationSAFE, an early intervention for children after community-wide trauma. Methods: Secondary data analyses of data collected during 158 OperationSAFE camps (a five day camp with a curriculum focused on coping with stressors) in five countries and ten disasters between 2015 and 2020 were performed. Data on child trauma-related functioning/well-being were collected by an OperationSAFE in-house developed symptom checklist and completed by counselors about children on the first and last day of the 5-day camp. Results: A total of 16,768 children participated in the camps (mean age 9.4 ± 2.36; 50% male). Trauma-related functioning/well-being improved from day 1 to day 5 (b = 8.44 ± 0.04; p < 0.0001). Older children improved more (b = 0.22 ± 0.01; p < 0.0001). Children in man-made ongoing trauma (war/refugees) situations responded stronger than those after natural disasters (b = 2.24 ± 0.05; p < 0.0001). Negligible effects for gender and the number of days between a traumatic event and the start of camp were found. Conclusions: This is the first study to show in a large and diverse sample that secondary prevention to promote resilience and prevent mental health concerns after a disaster for children is associated with improvements in trauma-related functioning/well-being. Delaying delivery of the intervention did not affect outcomes. Given the uncontrolled nature of the study and lack of long-term outcomes, more studies are needed to corroborate the current findings.
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ISSN:2227-9067
2227-9067
DOI:10.3390/children9070951