Sex differences in post-traumatic stress disorder following earthquakes: a systematic review

Abstract

Background. Earthquake is a natural event that can happen all around the world. And significant ones would cause great fatality, morbidity and huge economic damage to the local society. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a common psychiatric condition among the earthquake survivors. Some former studies indicated that being female experienced a higher risk of depression, a psychiatric symptoms after traumatic events, while others did not. It is not sure that whether females tend to be more easily suffer from PTSD after earthquakes. So the aim of the study is to conduct a systematic review to examine the sex difference of PTSD prevalence among surviving population after earthquake.

Method. A keyword searching was performed using ‘earthquake’ and ‘PTSD’, ’posttraumatic stress disorder’ as keywords. Articles published in recent 5 years, in English and the ones full text could be accessed were included in the study. Among the articles being selected according to the inclusion criteria, those ones which fulfilled the exclusion criteria would be eliminated.

Results. 11 articles included in this systematic review. In terms of the age of the subjects, there are seven articles studying the adult population and the remaining four studied children and adolescents. Six articles investigated the survivors from Chinese population after 2008 Wunchuan earthquake. Others studied survivors from local population after 2005 Pakistan earthquake(n=2), 2007 Peru earthquake(n=1), 2009 L’Aquila earthquake(n=1) and 1999 Jiji earthquake (n=1). On the other hand, the sex difference in earthquake-related PTSD in children and adolescents were inconsistent.

Conclusion. Women tended to experience higher risk of PTSD after earthquake than men, while result on sex difference was not consistent in the children/adolescent population. Further studies are needed to examine PTSD prevalence between boys and girls.