Prevalence, Severity And Associated Risk Factors Of PostTraumatic Stress Disorder, Among Medical Students, After 2019 Albania's Earthquake

Abstract

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is known to be the most common and most harmful mental health disorder after a disaster, such as an earthquake. We aim to study the prevalence, severity, associated risk factors, and tendencies of medical students to develop PTSD after the 2019 earthquake in Albania.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in February 2020, three months after the earthquake in Albania. 437 medical students, who were present in Tirana or the surrounding areas hit by the earthquake, responded to the survey. The instrument used in our study to measure PTSD symptoms was the self-administered questionnaire PTSD Checklist – Civilian Version. Generalized Linear Model (GLM) with Gamma log link was used to calculate mean values of PTSD symptoms scores among individuals of different categories (socio-demographic and other predictive variables).

Results: Overall, the prevalence of PTSD was found to be 17.5%. Females had a higher prevalence of PTSD than males (20.7% vs. 2.6%), p<0.001. In fully-adjusted GLM (gamma log link), mean PTSD symptoms were significantly higher among female students, those living with at least another person, and those who left out of dwelling after the earthquake compared with males, those living alone, and those who stayed in after earthquake [(30.1 vs. 23.0), (29.2 vs. 23.7) and (28.1 vs.24.6), respectively]. Conversely, mean PTSD symptoms were significantly lower among atheists compared with students of different religions [(21.1 vs. (26.4-29.2)].

Conclusions: Three months after the earthquake, the prevalence of PTSD amongst medical students was relatively high. While the overall trend across the population and its socio-demographic sub-categories have shown no or moderate levels of severity, psychosocial and clinical care (when required) should focus on risky categories, such as the female gender.