New research
Preventing Children's Posttraumatic Stress After Disaster With Teacher-Based Intervention: A Controlled Study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2011.01.002Get rights and content

Objective

The psychological outcomes that the exposure to mass trauma has on children have been amply documented in the past decades. The objective of this study is to describe the effects of a universal, teacher-based preventive intervention implemented with Israeli students before the rocket attacks that occurred during Operation Cast Lead, compared with a nonintervention but exposed control group.

Method

The study sample consisted of 1,488 students studying in fourth and fifth grades in a city in southern Israel who were exposed to continuous rocket attacks during Operation Cast Lead. The intervention group included about half (53.5%) of the children who studied in six schools where the teacher-led intervention was implemented 3 months before the traumatic exposure. The control group (46.5% of the sample) included six schools matched by exposure in which the preventive intervention was not implemented. Children filled out the UCLA-PTSD Reaction Index and the Stress/Mood Scale 3 months after the end of the rocket attacks.

Results

The intervention group displayed significantly lower symptoms of posttrauma and stress/mood than the control group (p < .001). Control children had 57% more detected cases of postraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than participant children. This difference was significantly more pronounced among boys (10.2% versus 4.4%) and less among girls (12.5% versus10.1%).

Conclusions

The teacher-based, resilience-focused intervention is a universal, cost-effective approach to enhance the preparedness of communities of children to mass trauma and to prevent the development of PTSD after exposure.

Key words

teacher-based intervention
school
disaster
PTSD

Cited by (0)

Mr. Wolmer and Dr. Hamiel contributed equally to this article.

This article is discussed in an editorial by Dr. Joan Rosenbaum Asarnow on page 320.

Supplemental material cited in this article is available online.

This work was supported by grants from the Pritzker Family Foundation and the Irving Harris Foundation.

We deeply thank Tali Versano, Mor Aram and Maya Faians of the Cohen-Harris Center and Shlomo Agmon of the Ashkelon School Psychology Services for their contribution to the program implementation and data management.

Disclosure: Mr. Wolmer, and Drs. Hamiel and Laor report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.

View Abstract