PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF FLOOD 2022 ON VICTIMS (A CASE STUDY OF SINDH)

Natural disasters including flood put negative impact on mental health of victims. The flood 2022 in Pakistan effected more than 33 million people. Sindh, Punjab, and KPK were the most flood effected provinces of Pakistan. Government and local NGOs provided shelter, food, and medicines and other material goods for physical wellbeing of the victims, but there was little or no psychological support available for them. Present study was focused to investigate the psychological impact of flood 2022 on flood victims of Sindh, Pakistan. It was a cross sectional study; non-probability convenience sampling technique was used for data collection. Data was collected from 80 flood victims I.e. 34 males and 46 females living in three shelter named Jamshoro camp, Hatri camp, and Kotri camp. The hypothesis of the study states that, there would be a no significant difference between the level of depression anxiety and stress among flood victims living in Jamshoro camp, Hatri camp, and Jamshoro camp. For the measurement of variables of the study depression anxiety and stress DASS 22 (Lovibond & Lovibond 1995) and personal information questionnaire was administered on participants of the study. Mean, SD, t-test and one way ANNOVA was computed for the interpretation of gathered data. Results of the study revealed that flood victims living in Jamshoro campus received greater scores on DASS as compared to Hatri and kotri camp. Thus the hypothesis of the study was not confirmed. The results of the study can be helpful to design psychological first aid, psychotherapies, counselling session for mentally disturbed flood victims. It is the requirement of the situation and a dire need to implement above said psychological interventions to reduce the risk of long term psychological problems among flood 2022 victims in Sindh