Adolescents' resilience: A Qualitative Study about experiences of Bam Earthquake Survivors

Introduction: Earthquake is the most catastrophic disaster that has harmful psychological, economic, social, political, and cultural effects on societies. Resilience or ability of person adaption to post-earthquake problems and crises is influenced by known and unknown factors. The present study aimed to explore experiences of Bam earthquake survivors about adolescents' resilience in that time. Materials and Methods: This is a qualitative study with directed Content Analysis approach. The participants were a total of 34 individuals including; 10 teachers and 24 parents of students, that they have earthquake experience in adolescent period. The subjects were selected based on purposive method. The sampling was done until data saturation from first course of high schools in Bam city, Iran in 2019. Data collected with in-depth and semi-structured interview and analyzed with Granehim and Lundman method. Results: Data analysis yielded 565 primary codes, 217 conceptual codes after integration, 25 subcategories, and 6 categories from the participants' experiences about their resilience against the disasters and earth quick. 6 categories including: disaster consequence, beliefs about resilience, beliefs about strengthening resilience, factors affecting on resilience, consequences of disasters facing, the necessity of disaster preparedness. Conclusion: Participants stated different opinions and experiences about resilience and the factors that strengthen or reduce it. They emphasized the necessity of preparedness and get different skills for coping with disasters. Therefore, it is suggested that crisis management officials use these experiences to devise measures to prepare communities, before disasters occur, to support during and after disasters to lessen the problems of future crises and strengthening resilience in community especially adolescents as next generation.