Campus communities can be severely affected by a disaster. It is, therefore, important for counselors to establish contingencies for these unexpected events. The authors present a case study outlining specific outcomes of a natural disaster. Results showed that levels of anxiety and irritability declined significantly over the course of an academic year following the event. The Conservation Resources model is used as a framework for addressing the effects of a disaster.
The events of September 11, 2001, have spurred a renewed interest in strategies that attempt to ameliorate the psychological effects of a major disaster. Each year, approximately 2 million people in the United States will be affected by some form of major disaster (e.g., tornadoes, floods, earthquakes; Meichenbaum, 1995); as many as 39% of the U.S. population will directly experience a traumatic event at some time in their lives (Ursano, Fullerton, & Norwood, 2001). The emotional and psychological effects of these disasters are highly variable. Although most people will not exhibit significant impairments as a direct result of the events, many could experience milder forms of anxiety, which could last several years and could impair their ability to function in many environments, including the academic environment (Meichenbaum, 1995).
Traumatic events can be classified on a continuum from mild to severe, with major natural disasters or extreme community violence capable of producing severe trauma. Regardless of the specific type of occurrence, in almost all traumatic events, students' ability to cope is affected by decreased access to resources, both tangible and intangible. For example, social support, a type of condition resource, is significantly influenced by a natural disaster because students' peers tend to scatter or return home and because the usual campus support systems may no longer be intact. The availability of social support is a highly relevant condition that serves to significantly reduce stress (Dougall, Hyman, Hayward, McFeeley, & Baum, 2001), and research on the effects of natural disasters has clearly demonstrated the need to increase social support as other resources are depleted (Arata, Picous, Johnson, & McNally, 2000; Freedy, Shaw, Jarrell, & Masters, 1992).
Given the likelihood that college students will encounter some type of traumatic event, it is important for college counselors to consider both long-term initiatives and crisis management interventions that can be implemented in the event of a disaster. Toward that goal, Hobfoll's (1989) Conservation of Resources (COR) stress model offers a useful framework that counselors can use to address the psychological distress of individuals who have experienced a disaster. Hobfoll suggested that people are fundamentally motivated to protect their resources as a function of creating a comfortable place in this world. Resources can be categorized into one of four classes: objects, conditions, personal characteristics, and energies. Objects are tangible resources (e.g., home) that can be linked to socioeconomic status. Hobfoll believed that these objects serve as a potential mediating variable for coping with stress because of their physical nature and status. Conditions, a second, less tangible category of resources, a re the roles that people have earned within the structure of society (e.g., partner, student). Personal characteristics include temperament and worldview, which may help a person to respond effectively to stress. Finally, the concept of energies includes intrinsic resources of time, knowledge, and abilities. Any threat to or loss of these four kinds of resources results in both an increase of stress and a decrease in the ability to cope with stress. The depletion of resources that typifies traumatic events can, therefore, affect people both in terms of pragmatics and self-identification. Effective interventions by college counselors should recognize all four kinds of resources available to students and encourage them to use those that are most available and effective given the circumstances of the disaster. The following case study illustrates how one campus responded to a natural disaster that significantly compromised the resources typically available on that campus.
Case Study
In January 1999, at 4:19 a.m., a devastating tornado registering F4 on the severity scale, struck the city of Clarksville, Tennessee (population, 104,000), demolishing the downtown area and significantly affecting the local university campus where approximately 5,000 students were enrolled. Tornado severity is ranked on the basis of wind speed and the severity of its destruction, ranging from F1 to P6. An P4 tornado is categorized as devastating, having winds of 207 to 260 miles per hour that are capable of destroying strong buildings (The Washington Post, 2002).
After the disaster, students and faculty related personal experiences that indicated the severe disruption they felt had occurred in their lives, a disruption that included the loss of object, condition, personal, and energy resources. For example, the level of detail that one student used to describe the event suggested that she felt extremely distressed. She reported that as she was studying for an exam, a loud roar caused her to go outside to determine the origin of the noise. As debris moved toward her, she tried to reenter her home but was trapped in the doorway by the force of the wind. When the tornado passed, she opened the door to discover that the chair that she had been sitting in and all of her belongings were gone. She reported feeling overwhelmed by feelings of fear and distress. Although this report came from a student who lived adjacent to the campus, significant damage also occurred in on-campus living communities. The roof and top floor of one residence hall were torn from the building as st udents ran to lower levels.
Several students reported experiences that were similar to the aforementioned one. The initial trauma was exacerbated by a prolonged disruption of their normal routines. Significant destruction occurred in two academic buildings, a residence hall, the student center, and administrative buildings. Damage was so extensive that the university remained closed for an entire week until makeshift arrangements allowed classes to resume. Restoration efforts continued for 1 year, and students did not return to their original academic buildings until the buildings were repaired. Although property damage was significant, there was miraculously no loss of life or serious injury.
Freedy et al. (1992) distinguished between types of experiences that victims of disaster encounter. Specifically, they delineated a difference between victims who are exposed to personal threat or terror and victims who experience general adversity, including postdisaster relief efforts. Victims who experience a more general threat (e.g., tornado vs. personal attack) may exhibit different levels of stress and anxiety than do individuals who experience personal threats. Furthermore, people may display different coping strategies, depending on the type of experience. Therefore, a widespread traumatic event, such as the previously described tornado, requires intervention that differs from the intervention that should follow a more personal attack.
In the case of the tornado, although all students had access to on-campus individual counseling, additional outreach interventions were offered. In this instance, an individual who specialized in treating groups and who had experienced a disaster was brought to campus to assist students, faculty, and staff in processing the experience. In addition, academic faculty members in the counselor training program offered their services for group counseling and individual counseling. Special group sessions were held in the residence halls that had not been destroyed and in makeshift locations across the campus to address issues related to resources that had been lost and to identify other resources.
Although attempts were made to collect data as quickly as possible, an initial assessment of levels of student distress did not occur until 1 month after the tornado struck because general conditions of the campus impeded our ability to quickly obtain instruments and secure a location for the study. Student volunteers were recruited 1 month, 4 months, and 9 months after the tornado struck the campus. At each data collection period, students were asked to complete a demographic data form and the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI; Briere, 1995). This procedure allowed us to match the reports for individual students and to track their experiences. The TSI is a 100-item scale that is designed to measure symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder. Respondents indicate the frequency of a symptom ranging from "never" to "often" over the previous 6 months. We chose this instrument because it was standardized for use with individuals who have experienced a traumatic event. The use of a standardize d instrument, rather than an experience-specific scale, will aid in long-term research of responses to disasters. Extensive support was offered for reliability and validity of the scales (cf. Briere, 1995).
In order to more fully understand the psychological experiences of the students on our campus, we decided to collect information about their levels of distress over the course of 1 academic year. One week after the tornado, we initiated the investigation and applied for approval through the Institutional Review Board. Ini tially, 56 students volunteered to participate; however, only 18 of the students completed all three assessments. Two men completed all three sessions of the study, and the remaining students (n 16) were women. Seventeen of the students were Caucasian, and 1 student was of Hispanic background. Eight African American students initially participated in the study, but none of these students completed all three sessions. The age range of the participants was 20-51 years (median age = 24 years, SD = 11.64). Two students lived on campus in the residence halls, 10 lived near the campus, and 6 were commuters. The campus community is primarily a commuter campus; only approximately 20% of the students live on campus.
The decline in anxiety levels between the first (M = 54.67, SD = 10.08) and second (M = 50.72, SD = 13.43) administrations did not reach statistical significance. However, at the third administration, which occurred 9 months after the tornado, students' levels of anxiety had declined significantly from the initial administration to a mean of 49.72 (SD = 10.32; t = 2.25, p = .038). Similarly, feelings of anger and irritability declined significantly over the course of the study (t = 2.21, p = .04). Scores increased slightly from a mean of 55.44 (SD = 9.36) at the first administration, to a mean of 55.56 (SD = 10.76) 4 months after the event, and finally to a mean of 50.44 (SD = 8.48) at the third administration.
One clear limitation of this study was the high level of mortality of participants. Longitudinal studies are expensive, and high retention rates are rare (Niles, Newman, & Fisher, 2000), and it is not unusual to experience this level of decline in participation. In this particular study, many students had graduated by the time of the third assessment. Moreover, with the declining significance of the previous year's trauma, it was difficult to convince students to continue participating in the study after the academic year ended. Despite this limitation, the results clearly showed that student access to resources was severely restricted at the initial assessment, as reflected in their reports of high levels of anxiety, anger, and irritability, which decreased only after an extended period of time.
Implications for College Counselors
Our preliminary investigation into the effects of this natural disaster suggests that students feel more anxious, angry, and irritable immediately after an event of this magnitude. These heightened levels of anxiety declined slightly in the months that followed, but a significant decline may not occur until at least 9 months after the event. Although the effects of a disaster seem to dissipate over time, it is important for practitioners to reduce stressful feelings as close to the event as possible.
What can practitioners do to ameliorate the effects of a natural disaster? Severe traumatic events may require individualized therapy for some students; however, individual therapy constitutes only one aspect of treatment. Use of the COR model would suggest that practitioners should pay particular attention to resource loss because minimizing loss will mitigate feelings of stress and anxiety following a disaster (Monnier & Hobfoll, 2000). Weisaeth (1995) suggested that elements of preparedness and mitigation may help students to minimize loss and more effectively cope with a traumatic event.
Preparedness
Long-term ongoing initiatives, which include an information or support center, should be identified before a disaster. Campus communities should have a formal structure in place that identifies a single vehicle for disseminating information to the campus community when a disaster occurs. Consistent, immediate information will help to reduce the sense of loss of community that individuals feel initially as a result of the disaster. It is useful to periodically remind all faculty and staff of this formal process in order to reduce the possibility of conflicts in communication and the likelihood of increasing the anxiety that results from conflicting reports. Additionally, lines of communication within a department can be disrupted; therefore, formal procedures for communicating within college divisions should be periodically disseminated. Practitioners should plan for communication in the event of loss of electricity, telephone service, and e-mail. Communication is the first step in an active response plan; yet , specific student and staff support systems must also be available.
Practitioners can engage in proactive efforts that would offer stability to students in the event of a natural disaster. In this case study, practitioners were forced to operate without adequate communication resources (i.e., telephone, electricity, e-mail) for an extended period of time. Similarly, there was no time to engage in significant training of staff through workshops typically presented through in-service programs. Instead, resident assistants were quickly debriefed by campus and community counselors so that they could respond to the needs of students. Most of the debriefing was simply a catharsis that allowed the resident assistants to share their personal experiences regarding the event. Although this cathartic experience is important, early training would have helped the resident assistants to cope, and they would have been able to provide support for students in the residence halls.
Multiple community-based resources for dealing with disasters already exist. A listing of available agencies and resources should be reviewed periodically and should be readily available for mobilization. From the perspective of the COR model, agencies can aid students in obtaining objects or tangible resources in a timely fashion. An organized mechanism must also be in place for equitable distribution of these resources.
Mitigation
In addition to long-term initiatives that prepare the campus community for potential disaster response, crisis management is critical for a complete response. The case study that we outline in this article suggests that individual coping skills differ. Campus mental health practitioners should concentrate their efforts on offering initial interventions immediately after a natural disaster. Traditional counseling skills (e.g., listening) and appropriate levels of self-disclosure may help students to normalize their feelings of anxiety, anger, and irritability. Initial contact with a counselor may also lead to individual counseling, and group support programs will help minimize the effects of the disaster. Specific therapeutic approaches for individual therapy have been addressed by other professionals (cf. Kanel, 2003; Slaikeu, 1990). Practitioners should not impose a single paradigm when working with individuals because students will cope differently depending on their previous experiences and individual trai ts.
Second, community loss and subsequent gain can play a crucial role in helping students to rebuild their lives after a disaster (Hobfoll, Briggs, & Wells, 1995). Hobfoll et al. pointed out that loss was significantly more influential than gain. Therefore, the first step in responding to a crisis should be to halt any further loss as quickly as possible. Initiation of the rebuilding of some level of community will help to halt the loss cycle and will aid in the coping process. Creating a sense of community helps to rebuild social support. Conditions, or belongingness, can be a resource that directly contributes to an individual's ability to rebuild from a disaster.
Community mental health resources serve as the mechanism for strengthening the personal resources, or coping strategies, of individuals. A specific plan of action should include on-campus resources and community-based agencies that can be mobilized during a time of need. Again, it is critical to break the cycle of loss and to assist students in reestablishing their sense of control, thus helping them to regain resources and minimizing negative outcomes (Monnier & Hobfoll, 2000).
In summary, the events of September 11,2001, and the likelihood of future unforeseen natural disasters underscore the necessity for college counselors to make plans for disaster mental health response and to acquire relevant training. Students will generally experience higher levels of anxiety immediately following an event, and levels will decrease significantly over a 1-year period. Nevertheless, practitioners can be actively prepared for a disaster, and they can help individuals to rebuild resources in the event of a disaster. Both components, preparedness and mitigation, can assist the campus community in rebuilding quickly and minimizing the long-term negative impact of the initial trauma.
References
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Briere, J. (1995). Trauma Symptom Inventory. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Dougall, A. L., Hyman, K. B., Hayward, M. C., McFeeley, S., & Baum, A. (2001). Optimism and traumatic stress: The importance of social support and coping. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 223-245.
Freedy, J. R., Shaw, D. L., Jarrell, M. P., & Masters, C. R. (1992). Towards an understanding of the psychological impact of natural disasters: An application of the conservation resources stress model. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 5, 441-454.
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Ursano, R. J., Fullerton, C. S., & Norwood, A. E. (2001). Psychiatric dimensions of disaster: Patient care, community consultation, and preventive medicine. Retrieved September 17, 2001, from the American Psychiatric Association Web site: http://www.psych.org/pract_of_psych/disaster.cfm
The Washington Post. (2002). Retrieved September 17, 2001, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-srv/national/longterm/tornado/background.htm
Weisaeth, L. (1995). Preventative psychosocial intervention after disaster. In S. E. Hobfoll & M. W. deVries (Eds.), Extreme stress and communities: Impact and intervention (pp. 401-419). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Maureen A. McCarthy and LuAnnette Butler, Department of Psychology, Austin Peay State University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Maureen A. McCarthy, Department of Psychology, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TN 37044 (e-mail: mccarthym@apsu.edu).
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