The Psychosocial Impact of an Earthquake on the Elderly

Recovery from post-earthquake psychological morbidity: who suffers and who recovers?

“…However, those who used more neurotic defenses and those who were older tended to be particularly vulnerable for persistent posttraumatic morbidity. The latter finding is consistent with our earlier report that the elderly are more affected by exposure to traumatic or post-disaster disruptive events [21]. Several of the limitations of the present study reflect the general methodological shortcomings of the disaster research literature, including: the reliance on self-report exposure and morbidity measures (however, the latter are often in the form of standardised scales with established characteristics); the absence of detailed evaluations of post-disaster factors that might influence the pattern of recovery (e.g.…”

“…However, those who used more neurotic defenses and those who were older tended to be particularly vulnerable for persistent posttraumatic morbidity. The latter finding is consistent with our earlier report that the elderly are more affected by exposure to traumatic or post‐disaster disruptive events [21].…”

Acute stress disorder in older, middle‐aged and younger adults in reaction to the second Lebanon war

“…A lower score for each of the symptoms separately was obtained by the older adults than the young one, while middle-aged adults were found in all measures in between the young and older groups. The present results support previous studies that found lower trauma-related ASS or ASD according to age (Harvey and Bryant, 1998;Cardena et al, 2005) and other studies reporting lower PTSD symptoms (Shore et al, 1989;Ticehurst et al, 1996;Acierno et al, 2006) or distress symptoms (Thompson et al, 1993;Kato et al, 1996;Knight et al, 2000) in older than in younger adults. The results show a decrease in level of ASS across the three groups.…”

Age and emotional response to the Northridge earthquake: A longitudinal analysis.

“…These results for age contrasted with those of Ticehurst et al (1995) who found greater earthquake-specific stress among their older adults. As noted earlier, the Newcastle earthquake occurred in an area in which earthquakes are quite rare.…”