Investigation of anxiety levels of children about nine years old who were sussered from Düzce earthquake happened on November twelve, One Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety Nine

IV SUMMARY The aim of this research is to find out the anxiety levels of the 9-year-old children 2 years after the Düzce Earthquake which occurred on 12 November 1999 (with a magnitude of 7,2). In this respect, those 9-year-old children's levels of state-trait anxiety have been examined according to some variables such as; sex, age, number of brothers or sisters, mother's age, level of education, occupation, working status, how many storeys the houses had in which the earthquake was experienced, the level of damage of the houses and with whom the children experienced the earthquake. Furthermore, the relationship between the anxiety levels of the children and their mothers and the fact that if there's any difference between the anxiety levels of the children who experienced and of those who did not experience the earthquake have been examined. The pattern of this research constitutes of 300 mothers and 9-year-old students 300 of which have been attending to the primary schools in Düzce (centre) which is located in an earthquake region and the others attending to the primary schools in Konya-Ereğli who have never experienced an earthquake before. In this research, "State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children" was used to determine the children's level of anxiety and "State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults" was used to determine their mothers' level of anxiety. The analysis of the data collected have been made through S.P.S.S. 10.0 Statistics Programme. It has been observed that the children's variables of sex, age, number of brothers or sisters, mother's age, level of education, working status, the number of storeys the house had (or has), the level of damage of the house have not influenced the children's state-trait anxiety levels reasonably. Moreover, it has also been observed that there is no meaningful relationship between the anxiety levels of the children who have been living in an earthquake region and their mothers and there is no difference in general between the anxiety levels of the children living in an earthquake region and of those who are not.According to these results, it is highly possible to conclude that the earthquake did not significantly effect the anxiety levels of the children. The fact that the children's not being able to perceive that supernatural phenomenon which is far beyond their control prevents them at great levels from feeling anxious after such a big catastrophe. In order to minimize the anxiety levels of children, parents' taking the necessary precautions, telling their children that earthquake is just a natural phenomenon and trying to explain what their children should do during a possible earthquake bears a very big importance. It will probably add new dimensions to examine other aspects of this subject using different variables on different model groups in other researches that might be carried out in the future.