OBJECTIVES: This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of psychosocial problems among residents of four flood-prone barangays in Manila located along the Maricaban-Malibay creek in Pasay City and were reported to have experienced 10-15 feet-deep flood waters simultaneously caused by Typhoon Maring and the southwest monsoon in August 2013.
METHODOLOGY: A stratified two-stage random cluster sampling method, adapted from the Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) Toolkit, was employed in the syudy. The first stage of sampling used street clusters, with more or less of the same size, as the primary sampling unites (PSU) and households as secondary sampling units (SSU) to select the households that will be included in the survey. Since the clusters were more or less of the same size, they ahd equal chances of being selected in the study if the probability of selection is proportionate to size (PPS). Seven houses were then randomly chosen from the 30 selected clusters. All of the househol heads from the 210 selected households were given several copies of the self-administered questionnairescalled the Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20), a screening tool developed by WHO, to determine the psychosocial condition of the household members 12-65 years.
RESULTS: The prevalence of psychosocial distress in this population was estimated at 17% (95%CI=13.7-20.3%). The residents of the study barangays were in their rehabilitation phase i.e., three months post disaster when data was collected for this study. The study also characterized the households in the sample according to socio-economic status, presence of members with special needs, and presence of children 0-5 years ol. In the aftermath of the disaster, 46.84% of the respondents had positive answer on the group of questions about decreased energy, 49.8% on somatic symptoms,25.89% on depressive thoughts and 40.91% on depressive moods.There was a higher prevalence of these 4 factors among females, those separated, with low socioeconomic status and low educational attainment.
CONCLUSION: The estimated prevalence of psychosocial distress was 17% (95%CI=13.7%-20.3%), In the aftermath of the disaster, 46.8% of the respondents had positive answer on the group of questions about decreased energy, 49.8% on somatic symptoms, 25.9% on depressive thoughts and 40.9% on depressive moods.