Individual and environmental risk factors for post-traumatic stress among hospital nurses after the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake in Japan

Bibliographic Data

ID15529474
AuthorsNaoki Furutani (0000-0001-5953-2114, Nagoya Medical Center, corresponding author), Yuki Murata (0000-0001-6850-4617, Noto General Hospital), Wataru Miwa (Noto General Hospital), Makoto Nakamura (0000-0001-7008-6880, Noto General Hospital), Masae Nakamura, Kakusho Chigusa Nakajima‐Ohyama (0000-0003-4974-883X, Nagoya Medical Center), Kakusho C Nakajima-Ohyama
Year2025
Volume16
Pages1631694-1631694
Publication date2025-08-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFrontiers in Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1664-0640 • E-ISSN: 1664-0640
PublisherFrontiers Media (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1631694
PMID40927015
OpenAlexW4413523711
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited51

Although post-earthquake psychological distress arises from a complex interplay of personal vulnerabilities and environmental stressors, the pathways by which these factors interact remain underexplored. We surveyed 327 hospital nurses in Nanao City, Japan, approximately eight months after the magnitude-7.5 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake; 224 complete responses were analyzed. Participants completed the Impact of Event Scale-Revised and a bespoke questionnaire assessing age, location during the earthquake, seven binary stress factors (home damage, relocation, community damage, change in co-residents, decline in family health, economic damage, earthquake-related sounds), and avoidant/emotion-focused coping. Analyses for each factor identified significant associations between IES-R scores and all stress factors except location during the earthquake and change in co-residents. ANCOVA adjusting for all predictors retained community damage, family health decline, economic damage, and coping as significant. Path analysis revealed two robust indirect pathways from age to distress: "age - community damage - IES-R" and "age - home damage - economic damage - IES-R", plus a direct "age - intrusion" path. Decline in family health also influenced distress indirectly via economic loss. These findings demonstrate that older nurses' elevated PTSS risk operates largely through greater exposure to specific disaster-related hardships, rather than age per se. Interventions should therefore combine individual support (e.g., coping skills, family health monitoring) with community-level recovery (e.g., infrastructure repair, social cohesion) to mitigate long-term mental-health impacts, especially among older adults

Environmental health · Forensic engineering · Geography · Medical emergency · Peninsula · Disaster Response and Management · Engineering · Medicine · Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research · Resilience and Mental Health

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