Influence of sociodemographic variables on psychological impact and resilience among children living in multi hazard Region

Background: Disasters have a great and lasting impact on children physically and psychologically because of their particular physiological and social developmental stage. Disasters are recognized as potential risk for the overall development of children, and children exposed to disasters require some abilities or protective factors which serve as a shield to buffer the risk. The present study was aimed at studying the role of sociodemographic factors on psychological impact and resilience among children exposed to disasters. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive research design was used to accomplish the study. The study included 100 out of 502 children, 25 each from four schools from four villages selected randomly of four zones of district Anantnag using multi-stage sampling and systematic sampling. The Children Revised Impact of Events Scale-13 and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-25 were used to assess the posttraumatic symptoms and resilience among the children. Results: The results showed that children had mild-to-moderate level of posttraumatic symptoms, and majority of the children had intermediate to high resilience. This study provided interesting results that female children were found high on resilience and low on posttraumatic symptoms, which is not usual. Significant differences were found between resilience and gender, education, socioeconomic status, income, and domicile as well. Similarly, differences were found between posttraumatic symptoms and displacement, family type, domicile, and education. Conclusion: Flood disasters increase the psychological vulnerability for children. To prevent the potential risks, children need protective factors. The present study highlighted that psychological resilience can be improved by looking and improving the sociodemographic factors and making promising ways of establishing resilience-building strategies to regain the spirit of children and families at individual and community level.