From Ontological Security Towards Disaster Psychological Recovery: Scale Development and Validation

Background: After the earthquake, communities faced various psychological challenges in safety and security assumptions and experienced ontological insecurity. Considering the role of ontological security and housing reconstruction on long-term psychological trauma recovery, the purpose of the research was based on the development and validation of a standard tool to measure this concept.  Materials and Methods: The research has a mixed method approach. In the qualitative phase, three primary earthquake survivors in Iran (the ۱۹۹۰ Manjil-Rudbar, the ۲۰۰۳ Bam, and ۲۰۱۷ Ezgeleh Sarpol-e Zahab earthquakes) participated, and preliminary concepts were defined using the Grounded Theory. In the second phase, the psychometric properties of the ontological security in the housing reconstruction framework were developed and examined through validity and reliability indices. In the quantitative phase, the developed questionnaire surveyed ۳۲۲ earthquake survivors. Finally, a questionnaire of ۴۸ items was developed.  Results: According to the findings in post-earthquake housing considering factors such as reconstruction flexibility, personalization, place familiarity, safety reassurance, physical-environmental characteristics affecting survivors’ protective behavior, coping with physical-environmental concerns, safety perception through participation and interaction, safe refuges in the settlement and reconstruction acceleration would be effective in ontological security feeling and as a result psychological trauma recovery. Conclusion: Achieving ontological security in housing is a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral need which is possible through environmental control, stability, trust, and continuity. The ontological security tool with a reliability value of ۰.۹۴۱ can measure this factor in post-earthquake housing reconstruction with the lens of psychological recovery of survivors.

کلیدواژه ها:

Housing quality ، Security measures ، Validation study ، Multidimensional scaling ، Earthquakes ، Psychological recovery