A questionnaire survey of storytelling experiences among people affected by the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in their late primary school years

Purpose: To identify the conditions related to storytelling of earthquake experiences elicited from child survivors of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (GHAE) and contribute to the development of nursing-led support services for children and their mental health.Methods: An on-line questionnaire survey was conducted with people who experienced the GHAE in 1995 and were in their late primary school years. The survey items include whether they felt comfortable sharing their experiences with others, when, with whom, and why they felt comfortable, and the conditions that would make them feel comfortable at this experience of sharing. A chi-square test was performed to examine the relationship between the experiences in the storytelling and demographics.Results: Of 462 respondents, 61.2% reported that on some occasions “I felt comfortable sharing my experiences with others.” Common responses about the time of the sharing were “within one year after the earthquake” (41.3%) and the persons they shared the experiences with were “people of the same generation who also experienced the same earthquake” (61.8%). Whether providing the storytelling of their earthquake experiences was statistically significantly related to gender (males 79.1% vs females 68.5%, p < 0.05) and the post-disaster experience (p < 0.001). Further, 43.5% respondents showed willingness to share their experience with “people in the same generation with similar experiences” in the future.Conclusions: Nurses are ideally positioned to create acute, mid- and long-term opportunities for people affected by the disaster in childhood to share their experience with peers with similar experiences, rather than with healthcare professionals.