Translated title:
«Awareness, convictions and practices on behalf of the parents in order to be able to deal with the event of an earthquake, especially affecting children from 2 until 6 years old in the prefecture of Attica»
Summary:
The earthquake is an unforeseen sudden event that creates stressful situations, it constitutes a traumatic experience because there is no possibility of psychological preparation before it occurs.
Apart from the effects on materials caused by the earthquake which involve house damages loss of property and employment, changing residence, there is also direct impact on children and parents.
Schools, residences, like all buildings hitted by earthquakes can put the lives of pupils, teachers and parents at risk. Such a phenomenon has serious and imminent consequences to people such as psychological breakdown, the feeling of insecurity, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and physical health problems.
When the children experience such a catastrophic event like the earthquake, their mental and sentimental function will be largely affected. Especially children in the age between 2-6 years old, who have not fully developed their verbal capacity, will express themselves through playing and movement. The children’s play therapy is a method of healing that uses child‘s playing as a basic therapeutic tool, which contributes substantially to the childrens communication and expression of their feelings.
The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to investigate how well prepared and informed parents are to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake especially on children and their psychology in order to fight any problems emerge and formulate relative constructive suggestions.
The research took place in the prefecture of Attiki, with the help of an on line questionnaire which was distributed via email to the participants. It involved parents who have children between 2-6 years old. The on line questionnaire was formed through Google Forms, a program of Google that enables users to create research questionnaires.
Keywords:
Earthquake, crisis, PTSD, civil protection, play therapy.
