Factors Associated with Psychological Impact of Junior High School Students after Earthquake in Padang, West Sumatera, Indonesia

Objectives: To examine factors associated with psychological impact of junior high school students after earthquake in Padang, West Sumatera, Indonesia. Method: This was a cross-sectional study, purposive random sampling was composed of 270 students were recruited from three Junior High Schools consist of SLTP 7, SLTP 13 and SLTP 25 in Padang West Sumatera from Mey - June 2013. The psychological impact were assessed using the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) and Way of Coping questionnaire was used to measure the coping strategies. Result: Using the DASS-21 with a score of 24.4% for symptom of depression, 58.1% and 22.6% was found to suffer anxiety and stress rescpectively. Factors found to be significantly associated with depression, anxiety and stress were younger age group, but gender not associated with anxiety, socio-economic status and living arrangement not associated with depression and anxiety, loss family member and coping strategies (p<0.05). Conclusion: Additional research is needed to investigate the long- term, earthquake-related psychopathology. Nurses should receive more education about disaster-related psychological health skills to provide adequate psychological counseling and intervene successfully to assist students who survived the tragedy to optimize their psychological health status after earthquake.