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Risk and Protective Factors for Suicidal Ideation Among Adolescents After the Devastating Earthquake in Turkey: The
Mehtap Eroglu1, Belgin Ustun Gullu2, Merve Cikili Uytun3
1Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Ankara City Hospital, Ankara, Turkey.
Objective:
Suicide risk after an earthquake remains a significant topic in trauma psychology among adolescents. This study investigated the relationship between PTSD and suicidal ideation with dissociation, cognitive flexibility, psychological resilience and social support in a sample of adolescents who survived an earthquake.
Method:
One and a half years after the severe earthquake in Turkey, 373 high school students in Hatay were included in the study. Data were collected using the Subscale of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms, the Suicide Cognitions Scale, the Peritraumatic Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire, the Cognitive Flexibility Scale, the Perceived Social Support Scale-From Family and the Child and Youth Resilience Measure.
Results:
The study results showed that 74.8% of adolescents had moderate to severe PTSD symptoms 18 months after the earthquake, but the rate of psychiatry outpatient clinic application after the earthquake was as low as 4.5%. Linear regression analyses revealed that the levels of dissociation and cognitive flexibility related to the severity of PTSD symptoms. While PTSD level and suicidal ideation were positively correlated, this significance disappeared in advanced analyses and mediation analyses showed that suicidal ideation was directly and indirectly affected by the level of dissociation and cognitive flexibility, respectively.
Conclusions:
Our study highlights the importance of evaluating psychological health and suicidal behaviour several years after disasters given the high rates of PTSD detected in the chronic period. The study also emphasises the significance of interventions targeting dissociation and cognitive flexibility in reducing PTSD severity and suicidal ideation.
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