Depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in adolescents seven months after the february 27 2010 earthquake in Chile

Abstract

On February 27th of 2010, Chile experienced one of the strongest earthquakes in recorded history, causing serious consequences on people's mental health. The goal of the present study was to provide a preliminary assessment of the impact of this phenomenon in adolescent's mental health. A total of 304 adolescents were assessed on depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. The results indicate an increase in the incidence of all the assessed disorders, confirming that females are a risk population who reached significantly higher scores than males on all scales. The study further demonstrated a close relationship of co-morbidity among the symptoms of the assessed disorders.