Emotional Distress in Fifth-Grade Children Ten Months after a Natural Disaster

Ten months after a blizzard and flood disaster struck Revere, Massachusetts, fifth-grade children in two churches wrote stories about “this coming winter.” These were assessed blindly by six mental health clinicians for signs of distress, including fear, depression, and anxiety. Children from the flooded area demonstrated more distress than those from the nonflooded area. Only girls showed this effect; for boys, there was no difference between flooded and nonflooded groups. These results, which suggest that distress can persist as long as 10 months after a natural disaster, corroborate and extend the findings of an earlier study of younger children in this community. Future studies may be able to incorporate standardized instruments using revised criteria for clinical disorders in this age group.