Prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in two groups of children one year after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
BACKGROUND
More than 500 studies were conducted in Haiti following the January 12 of 2010 earthquake, yet few of them assessed mental health of the population. To our knowledge, none targeted the effectiveness of various methods used to treat survivors, whether adults or children


METHOD
Our study aimed to assess one year after the disaster, the effect of a specific psycho-social support offered to relocated children in Port-au-Prince compared with a control group.


RESULTS
The two groups were homogeneous in the intensity of the peritraumatic distress they experienced. We were unable to show a significant difference between both in the average scores for PTSD, nor for depression, nor in three out of the four sub-scales of the Child Behavior Check-List. In case children, 68% and 40.9%, respectively, and 50% and 20.5% of the control group, reported severe levels of the symptoms of PTSD and depression. These surprising results can be explained by the absence of equivalence in the two groups from a socio-demographic point of view and because subjects were not randomly selected in the recruitment process.


CONCLUSION
This study has not made it possible to indicate the effectiveness of a specific psycho-social support offered to children in the aftermath of the disaster. On the other hand, the sample illustrates the high prevalence (more than 50% for PTSD) of severe post-traumatic stress in this group of school-age children, one year after the earthquake. These results indicate that serious attention should be paid to the mental health aspects in reconstruction program for the country.
['Blanc|Judite|J|', 'Bui|Eric|E|', 'Mouchenik|Yoram|Y|', 'Derivois|Daniel|D|', 'Birmes|Philippe|P|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D002648:Child D002675:Child, Preschool D003863:Depression D055866:Earthquakes D005260:Female D006205:Haiti D006801:Humans D008297:Male D015995:Prevalence D012944:Social Support D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic D017741:Survivors
Post-traumatic stress disorder Depression Children Earthquake