A cohort study of the long-term impact of a fire disaster on the physical and mental health of adolescents

Abstract

The literature on adult trauma survivors demonstrates that those exposed to traumatic stress have a poorer physical health status than nonexposed individuals. Studies on physical health effects in adolescent trauma survivors, in contrast, are scarce. In the current study, it was hypothesized that adolescents who have been involved in a mass burn incident (N = 124) will demonstrate more physical and mental health problems than an unaffected cohort from the same community (N = 1,487). Health data were extracted from electronic medical records, covering 1-year prefire and 4-years postfire. When compared to the prefire baseline, survivors showed significantly larger increases in mental, respiratory, and musculoskeletal problems than community controls during the first year after the fire, but not during the later years.