| dc.description.abstract | The study examined the relationship between Coping and the occurrence of PTSD among victims of fire disasters in Kampala Capital City Authority, to provide a basis for psychological programs to address the needs of victims. Using a correlational design, data was collected by the help of structured questionnaires from a purposive sample of 160 respondents from Kiseka, Owino markets and Crest foam mattresses, who had been victims of fire disasters in KCCA. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation test and regression analysis. Significant findings included; a substantial occurrence of PTSD symptoms was found among victims of Fire disasters. The victims reported high levels of anxiety, restless and fear on reliving the traumatic fire disaster experience. Adaptive coping had a negative and non-significant influence on PTSD (β =-17, p> 0.05), Maladaptive coping had a significant influence on PTSD (β =.51, p<0.05) and coping explained 9% (r2=0.09) of the variation in PTSD. Thus, maladaptive coping in form of denial, withdrawal and emotional numbing was used mostly, which negatively affected the wellbeing of victims. Therefore, the government needs to develop a comprehensive model for timely management of Traumatic stress from disasters and a fully-fledged professional fire disaster trauma counselling department in all disaster management public institutions. The police firefighting department needs to have trained police officers in trauma counselling to provide immediate professional counselling to fire disaster victims, since they are usually the first contact and responders in cases of fires. Further research is recommended in public institutions to further bridge the knowledge gap on negative psychological effects of fire disasters. | en_US |
