@article{ref1,
title="Multilevel social mechanisms of post-disaster depression",
journal="International journal of environmental research and public health",
year="2021",
author="Komproe, Ivan H. and Kawachi, Ichiro and Wind, Tim R.",
volume="18",
number="2",
pages="e391-e391",
abstract="This exploratory study empirically shows how community social capital is related to post-disaster depression, whereas most disaster mental health research has focused  on posttraumatic stress disorder. We tested the validity of earlier found multilevel  social and individual mechanisms of posttraumatic stress for symptoms of  post-disaster depression. We used data (n = 231) from a community study after a  flood in Morpeth (2008), a rural town in northern England. At the salutary community  level, our multilevel analyses showed that, in communities with high social capital,  individuals employ less individual social support and coping effort, which protects  individuals from developing symptoms of depression. Yet, on the 'dark' individual  level of our model, we found that perceiving the disaster as less traumatic after a  year was related to more feelings of depression in contrast to previous findings for  posttraumatic stress. Our explanation of this finding is that, when the appraisal of  the disaster as threatening fades into the background, individuals may perceive the  full scope of the disaster aftermath and start to feel depressed. We also found that  more social support is related to more depression. Although depressed people may  attract or receive more social support, this social support can paradoxically become  disabling by reinforcing a sense of dependence, thereby undermining self-esteem and  leading to feelings of helplessness. Our results imply that to curb post-disaster  depression, boosting community level social capital may be an important starting  point for building resilience. At the same time, interventionists need to identify  risk groups for whom the stressful experience becomes less intrusive and who  experience the burden of dependency on an unequal relationship with ones' social  inner circle.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1661-7827",
doi="10.3390/ijerph18020391",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020391"
}