Long-term Psychological Support for Women

In the near future, three years will have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake. Despite the passage of time, several residents living off the Pacific coast of Tohoku continue to suffer from mental and physical repercussions of the event. In other words, numerous survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake continue to live with emotional trauma and stress. Previous studies suggest that mental health problems among natural disaster survivors are most pronounced within a specified period after the event.

Although recovery among survivors is progressing incrementally in the disaster area of Tohoku, one may argue that availability of medium- to long-term psychological care for these people is important. Immediately following the earthquake, our research team provided horticultural therapy as a medium- to longterm psychological support to the survivors. The motivation behind this study is based on previous research suggesting that women are more susceptible to experiencing anxiety in post-disaster environments than men, that women are more likely to be diagnosed with Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than men after experiencing natural disasters, and that weak social support is associated with a higher susceptibility to PTSD.

Horticultural Therapy (HT) is a psychological care method for treating PTSD that was developed in the United States for psychological care and social rehabilitation of disabled soldiers and war veterans diagnosed with PTSD following World War II. Previous studies have suggested that HT and exposure to nature can have cognitive, psychological, social, and physical benefits. Since the earthquake, our research group has reported psychological effects of horticultural therapy on women living in the disaster areas. 

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