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Five-year post-disaster mental changes: Mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated Fukushima regions

It has been almost 10 years since the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc.’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011. This study elucidates changes in the mental states of mothers and children residing in low-dose radiation contaminated regions within Fukushima Prefecture over a fi...

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Autores principales: Tsutsui, Yuji, Ujiie, Tatsuo, Takaya, Rieko, Tominaga, Misako
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7773183/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33378404
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243367
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author Tsutsui, Yuji
Ujiie, Tatsuo
Takaya, Rieko
Tominaga, Misako
author_facet Tsutsui, Yuji
Ujiie, Tatsuo
Takaya, Rieko
Tominaga, Misako
author_sort Tsutsui, Yuji
collection PubMed
description It has been almost 10 years since the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc.’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011. This study elucidates changes in the mental states of mothers and children residing in low-dose radiation contaminated regions within Fukushima Prefecture over a five-year period after the Fukushima Daiichi accident. From 2011 to 2015, questionnaire surveys assessing psychological symptoms, including posttraumatic stress disorder-related responses, depressive responses, and stress responses, and radiation protection behaviors were conducted with 18,741 mothers of children aged four, 18, and 42 months. Mothers’ and children’s psychological symptoms and mothers’ radiation protection behaviors were highest in 2011, immediately following the nuclear accident, but decreased over time. However, even in 2015, psychological symptoms and radiation protection behaviors were higher for children and mothers within Fukushima Prefecture than for those in a control group living in regions outside the area, which were minimally affected by the accident. The results suggest that the psychological effects in mothers and children living in low-dose radiation contaminated areas continued for at least five years after the accident. Furthermore, psychological effects in children born after the incident were likely to have been triggered by the parental behavior of mothers who were negatively affected by anxiety and stress. This finding raises concerns regarding the accident’s long-lasting psychological effects in mothers and children living in low-contamination regions.
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spelling pubmed-77731832021-01-08 Five-year post-disaster mental changes: Mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated Fukushima regions Tsutsui, Yuji Ujiie, Tatsuo Takaya, Rieko Tominaga, Misako PLoS One Research Article It has been almost 10 years since the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc.’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011. This study elucidates changes in the mental states of mothers and children residing in low-dose radiation contaminated regions within Fukushima Prefecture over a five-year period after the Fukushima Daiichi accident. From 2011 to 2015, questionnaire surveys assessing psychological symptoms, including posttraumatic stress disorder-related responses, depressive responses, and stress responses, and radiation protection behaviors were conducted with 18,741 mothers of children aged four, 18, and 42 months. Mothers’ and children’s psychological symptoms and mothers’ radiation protection behaviors were highest in 2011, immediately following the nuclear accident, but decreased over time. However, even in 2015, psychological symptoms and radiation protection behaviors were higher for children and mothers within Fukushima Prefecture than for those in a control group living in regions outside the area, which were minimally affected by the accident. The results suggest that the psychological effects in mothers and children living in low-dose radiation contaminated areas continued for at least five years after the accident. Furthermore, psychological effects in children born after the incident were likely to have been triggered by the parental behavior of mothers who were negatively affected by anxiety and stress. This finding raises concerns regarding the accident’s long-lasting psychological effects in mothers and children living in low-contamination regions. Public Library of Science 2020-12-30 /pmc/articles/PMC7773183/ /pubmed/33378404 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243367 Text en © 2020 Tsutsui et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Tsutsui, Yuji
Ujiie, Tatsuo
Takaya, Rieko
Tominaga, Misako
Five-year post-disaster mental changes: Mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated Fukushima regions
title Five-year post-disaster mental changes: Mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated Fukushima regions
title_full Five-year post-disaster mental changes: Mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated Fukushima regions
title_fullStr Five-year post-disaster mental changes: Mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated Fukushima regions
title_full_unstemmed Five-year post-disaster mental changes: Mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated Fukushima regions
title_short Five-year post-disaster mental changes: Mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated Fukushima regions
title_sort five-year post-disaster mental changes: mothers and children living in low-dose contaminated fukushima regions
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7773183/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33378404
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243367
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