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© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

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.

Details

Title
Trauma Functioning and Well-Being in Children Who Receive Mental Health Aid after Natural Disaster or War
Author
Simonds, Emily A 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Katrina Arlene P Gobenciong 1 ; Wilson, Jonathan E 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Jiroutek, Michael R 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Nugent, Nicole R 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Miranda A L van Tilburg 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Department of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Sciences, College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, Campbell University, Buies Creek, NC 27506, USA; [email protected] (E.A.S.); [email protected] (K.A.P.G.); [email protected] (M.R.J.) 
 OpSAFE International, Tokyo 198-0013, Japan; [email protected] 
 The Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, RI 02903, USA; [email protected] 
 Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, Marshall University, Huntington, WV 25701, USA; Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA 
First page
951
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
22279067
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2693968950
Copyright
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.