An Investigation of the Effect of an Earthquake Psychoeducation Program on the Perception of Coping with Trauma, Psychological Resilience, and the Subjective Well-Being of High School Students

Abstract

Natural disasters have become one of the leading events that have seriously affected human life and shaken society, both in Turkey and in the world lately. Natural disasters that have a wide impact cause material morale losses and have a traumatic effect on individuals. Earthquakes are one of the compelling life events that cause losses and traumatic experiences due to their destructive effects. After such an event, it is important to ensure the adaptation of individuals to normal life, to cope with the traumas that may occur, to increase their psychological resilience in the face of challenging life events, and to ensure their subjective well-being with psychosocial support activities to be carried out. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine the effect of the earthquake psychoeducation program on the perception of coping with trauma, psychological resilience, and subjective well-being of high school students affected by earthquakes. The research participants consisted of students who came to Şırnak from the earthquake region and continued their high school education. In the research, a pretest-posttest single-group quasi-experimental design was used, and 11 high school students were included as participants. The Perceived Ability to Cope with Trauma Scale (PACT), the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), and the Adolescent Subjective Well Being Scale were used to collect the data. The earthquake psychoeducation program for high school students consisting of eight modules and 11 sessions was applied to the participants. The data were analyzed with the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test for the significance of the pre-test and post-test score differences. The findings obtained as a result of the research showed that the earthquake psychoeducation program was effective on the perception of coping with trauma and psychological resilience of high school students affected by the earthquake, but it was not significantly effective on their subjective well-being. Based on the research findings, comments were made, and suggestions for practice and research were developed.