Posttraumatic sequelae in a community hit by an avalanche

• Main Authors: Finnsdottir, Thorunn, Elklit, Ask
• Other Authors: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Landspítali, Iceland.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2008
• Subjects: Adult; Analysis of Variance; Case-Control Studies; Female; Humans; Iceland; Life Change Events; Male; Middle Aged; Natural Disasters; Risk Factors; Stress Disorders; Post-Traumatic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2336/30354; https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020969906251

To access publisher full text version of this article. Please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field The posttraumatic sequelae for 104 adult inhabitants from the town of Flateyri, Iceland, were studied 10 weeks after an avalanche hit the town killing 20 people. Eighty-seven adults from the neighboring town of Thingeyri constituted a control group. On the basis of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30), 25% of the Flateyri group (twice as many than in Thingeyri) reached a level of psychiatric caseness. The most common symptoms were intrusive thoughts and feelings, tension, sadness, and anxiety. The loss of family members was associated with symptomatology. A high number of former life events correlated more strongly with distress symptoms than with the individual appraisal of these events. Distress symptoms were related to gender, age, and education.