Trial lecture title: The significance of post-disaster care for health development.
The ordinary opponents are:
- First opponent: Docent of Care Sciences Maria Arman, Karolinska Institutet
- Second opponent: Associate Professor Truls I. Juritzen, University of South-Eastern Norway
- Leader of the evaluation committee: Professor Amy Østertun Geirdal, Oslo Metropolitan University
The leader of the public defense is Professor Sølvi Helseth, Vice-Dean R&D, Oslo Metropolitan University.
- The main supervisor is Professor Ellen Karine Grov, Oslo Metropolitan University
- The co-supervisor is Associate Professor Jon G. Reichelt, Psychiatry Specialist, Norwegian Armed Forces
Thesis abstract
This study contributes to knowledge of how post-traumatic stress, anxiety, hyperarousal symptoms and sleep problems are distributed among a group of directly and indirectly trauma-exposed individuals.
Furthermore, this study provides in-depth knowledge of what it is like to live with a traumatic event over three decades. The main findings of the study emphasize that symptoms of PTSD and anxiety may persist, and even increase, in a group of well-selected and trained soldiers.
We also found a significant association between those with PTSD symptoms combined with hyperarousal symptoms and sleep problems 30 years after the avalanche.
Furthermore, we found that those with sleep problems 30 years after the avalanche were most likely to have hyperarousal symptoms during the entire follow-up period, compared to those without sleep problems.
Different strategies for coping
Finally, in the qualitative part of the study, we found three different main categories in the group of surviving individuals.
It may seem that the survivors have different strategies for coping and dealing with daily life throughout the three decades that have passed since the avalanche. The first category represents a more frequent use of adaptive coping strategies in daily life compared to the other categories.
The third category represents the most challenging consequences of living with the experience of the disaster. Among the three, the latter category conveys the most maladaptive coping strategies.
Based on the results and findings in our study, early identifying of negative mental health symptoms, in particular post-traumatic stress and hyperarousal symptoms, may be crucial to shedding light on possible negative long-term sleep problems following disasters.
Contribution
From a public health perspective, this study may contribute to the identification of vulnerable individuals and groups, and further, to increase insight into different coping strategies used by survivors after a traumatic event.
Such coping strategies may be relevant targets for intervention programs, help, advice and guidance for health professionals, survivors and their relatives, in order to deal with traumatic events in the long run.
