TITLE:
Epidemiological Studies on the Relationship between PTSD Symptoms and Circadian Typology and Mental/Sleep Health of Young People Who Suffered a Natural Disaster, Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake
AUTHORS:
Kai Wada, Hiroko Kuroda, Miyo Nakade, Hitomi Takeuchi, Tetsuo Harada
KEYWORDS:
Natural Disasters; Victims; PTSD; Sleep Quality; Circadian Typology
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.6 No.5,
March
13,
2014
ABSTRACT:
This study aims, first, to determine the
relationship between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and current
circadian typology and sleep habits of adults who experienced the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in their childhood in
January 1995. An integrated questionnaire was administered to 275 university students (females:
173, males: 93, unknown: 9) aged 19 - 37 (mean age: 21.9 years) in Hyogo Prefecture,
Japan. The questionnaire consisted of basic questions about attributes,
questions on sleep habits and sleep quality (Monroe’s sleep quality index), the
Torsvall-?kerstedt Diurnal
Type Scale and the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) to obtain PTSD scores.
Participants who scored 25 or more in the IES-R were placed in a high-traumatic
group (HTG) and those who scored less than 25 were placed in a low-traumatic
group (LTG). HTG participants exhibited significantly worse sleep
quality than LTG participants (p 0.05), HTG participants woke more frequently during sleep (p