Investigation of the role of natural disaster experience and anxiety level on the cognitive triad among university students

Traumatic life events such as natural disasters affect individuals' psychological experiences and the way they evaluate the world. There is no known study that examines the effects of natural disaster experiences among university students on individuals' anxiety levels and cognitive triad sub-dimensions ("view of self", "view of world", "view of future"). In this regard, in our study, the effect of natural disaster and anxiety level on the cognitive triad of university students was examined. Our study was conducted with 277 university students (188 of them are female) between the ages of 18-30. The current sample was further divided into two subgroups according to the presence of disaster experience (yes, n=161; no, n=131). Students' views of self, future and world are measured by the Cognitive Triad Inventory (CTI); Anxiety levels were assessed with the Beck Anxiety Inventory. MANOVA was conducted to examine the effects of natural disaster and anxiety on the cognitive triad subscales. The disaster-related group was divided into subgroups according to their disaster-related experiences (such as; injury during the disaster, economic effects), and ANOVA and t-tests were conducted to analyze the effect of disaster-related experiences on the CTI total score. A significant difference was observed in CTI dimensions according to anxiety level (p<0,01) and natural disaster categories (p = 0.03). However, no significant interaction effect of natural disasters and anxiety experiences was observed on the CTI sub-dimensions (p>0.05). Being injured during the disaster (p=0.003), being affected socioeconomically by the disaster (p=0.001), having a relative injured during the disaster (p=0.005), living in the disaster area (p=0.004) and not obtaining basic needs after the disaster (p=0.001) are cognitive factors. It negatively affected the cognitive triad. Our findings showed that disaster and anxiety experiences in young people have a negative impact on their view of self, world and future, and some disaster-related experiences may negatively affect cognitive processes.