The effect of earthquake preparedness training given to mothers with physically disabled children on psychological resilience and earthquake readiness levels

This research was conducted to evaluate the effect of earthquake preparedness training given to mothers with physically disabled children on their psychological resilience and earthquake preparedness levels. The study was conducted in a province located in the Eastern Anatolia Region and in a special education and rehabilitation centre affiliated to the Ministry of National Education between January 2024 and April 2024 as a pre-test/post-test control group experimental study. The population of the study consists of mothers of children with physical disabilities whose education and treatment continues in 56 rehabilitation centres in the province. The centre where the data were collected was determined by lottery method among the institutions that met the sampling number. In the G*Power analysis, it was determined that 60 mothers would be sufficient, but the study was completed by including 78 mothers. After the pre-test was applied to the mothers, the experimental (S=39) and control groups (S=39) were determined by simple randomisation method. Mothers in the experimental group were given earthquake preparedness training with the prepared training material. Mother Introductory Information Form, Child Introductory Information Form, Disaster Preparedness Scale (DPS) and Adult Psychological Resilience Scale (APRS) were used as data collection tools. The data were analysed with SPPSS V26.0 software. Ethical principles were adhered to during the research process. It was determined that the experimental and control groups were similar in terms of descriptive characteristics. It was found that the APRS scores of the experimental and control groups were similar before the training, and after the training, there was an increase in favour of the experimental group and this constituted a statistical difference (p<0.05). It was found that the DPS scores of the experimental and control groups were similar before the training, and there was an increase in favour of the experimental group after the training and this constituted a statistical difference (p<0.05). It was determined that earthquake preparedness training increased both psychological resilience and earthquake preparedness of mothers with physically disabled children and their level of knowledge and awareness about earthquake. Preparing families with physically disabled children for earthquake, developing training programmes and materials about earthquake and increasing the level of awareness will allow both the family and the child to be safe. Key words: Earthquake, Mother, Physically disabled child, Preparedness, Psychological resilience