The effect of psychosocial support services on trauma and stress-related mental disorders in disaster and emergency situations: the example of kahramanmaraş earthquakes

The first aim of this study is to develop a perceived psychosocial support scale and the second aim is to determine the effect of perceived psychosocial support on the mental states (post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety) of disaster victims who have received psychosocial support. The sampling method of the study is convenience sampling. The application period of the study, which was conducted by applying the face-to-face survey method, is between 15.02.2024 and 15.05.2024. A total of 668 people were reached and the data of 638 participants were included in the analysis. The statistical methods used in the study are: Content validity rate, distribution statistics (mean, standard deviation, median, skewness and kurtosis), explanatory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Croncbach alpha, item-total correlations, split-half and Guttman reliability analyses, convergent validity, discriminant validity, composite reliability and structural equation model. In the scale development phase of the study, a perceived psychosocial support scale with 4 sub-dimensions (information, process, individual benefit and social benefit) was developed. The scale has 3 items under each sub-dimension, and it contains 12 items in total. As a result of the structural equation modeling performed to test the hypotheses of the research, 7 of the regression coefficients were found to be significant at the 0.05 level of significance. Low level negative relationships were found between the knowledge sub-dimension and post-traumatic stress (-0.106), depression (-0.109) and anxiety (-0.095). High level negative relationships were found between the process sub-dimension and post-traumatic stress (-0.880), depression (-0.955), and moderate level negative relationships were found between the process sub-dimension and anxiety (-0.729). 6 of the 12 hypotheses of the research were accepted.