Social relationships and mental health among the victims of The Great East Japan Earthquake; A multilevel longitudinal study
Three years have passed since The Great East Japan Earthquake (2011). Over 43,000 victims still live in temporary housings, and they tend to have psychological distress. There are a few studies focusing on the association between social support and long-term mental health after disaster. We analyzed large-scale longitudinal data to investigate the association between individual social support, social participation and long-term mental health among adults living in temporary housings.
METHODS:
We used two-wave panel data from the Health Survey of Residents in Temporary Housing in Miyagi prefecture, which was conducted in 2012 and 2013. Environmental variables of temporary housing community at baseline were also used. More than 12 point of K6 score was defined as having psychological distress. Using three-level multilevel logistic regression (level 1; individual, level 2; household, and level 3; temporary housing community), we analyzed the association between individual social support, social participation, and psychological distress in 2013 with adjusting individual demographic and local environmental factors including community level social support and social participation.
RESULTS:
Baseline survey included 21,450 respondents (response rate= 58.6%), and 10,850 of them also responded in 2013 (follow-up rate= 50.6%). We used 6,310 data without missing value. At baseline, 581 respondents had distress while 5,729 respondents didn’t have distress. Among these 5,729 respondents, 260 newly had distress in follow-up. After adjusted for covariates, factors associated with higher risk of onset of psychological distress were no social support (odds ratio (OR)= 2.27, 95% confidence interval (CI); 1.67-3.09), lack of social participation (OR= 2.54, 95%CI; 1.45-4.46). On the other hand, among the 581 respondents with distress at baseline, 247 still had distress. After adjusted covariates, no social support significantly associated with distress (OR= 1.91, 95%CI; 1.25-2.93).
CONCLUSIONS:
This study suggests social support and social participation may protect long-term mental health among victims in temporary housing.