Mooli Lahad

Ongoing exposure versus intense periodic exposure to military conflict and terror attacks in Israel

The manifestation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in two clinical samples in Israel (N = 212) was examined. Individuals suffering ongoing exposure to shelling were compared with subjects exposed to intense periodic exposure. Elevated arousal and avoidance symptoms, but not intrusion were reported in the ongoing exposure group. When compared by age, young participants in the ongoing exposure group had significantly lower PTSD scores, whereas no differences were found between participants among the intense periodic exposure age groups. No gender differences in symptoms were found among participants from intense periodic exposure, whereas in the other ongoing group the difference was in avoidance. Results are discussed in light of past research on exposure to terrorism.

A Safe Place: Ways in Which Nature, Play and Creativity Can Help Children Cope with Stress and Crisis--Establishing the Kindergarten as a Safe Haven where Children Can Develop Resiliency.

This article presents a way in which the innovative Nature Therapy conceptual framework coupled with creative therapeutic methods can help children develop resilience and support their coping with uncertainty and stress. It refers to the Safe Place programme that took place in 110 Israeli kindergartens, helping over 6000 children after the Second Lebanese War. It is based Ayalon and Lahad’s 2000 BASIC PH integrative model of ‘resiliency’ highlighting the importance of the kindergarten in such development and challenging the tendency to use the kindergarten as a deductive, preparatory course for school and schooling only. The article integrates theory with examples from practice which can help readers to incorporate them into their own work.

Posttraumatic Symptoms and Posttraumatic Growth of Israeli Firefighters, at One Month following the Carmel Fire Disaster

Wildfire disasters are potentially traumatic events which directly and indirectly affect both citizens and first responders. The study of posttraumatic growth is scarcely found in the context of firefighters and only few studies have addressed this construct. In the current study, posttraumatic symptoms and posttraumatic growth were investigated among Israeli firefighters (N = 65), approximately one month after the Carmel Fire Disaster. Eight firefighters (12.3%) were found to be above the cut-off score for probable PTSD, with intrusion symptoms as the most frequent finding compared to avoidance and hyper-arousal symptoms. Posttraumatic growth (PTG) was evident to a small but considerable degree; noticeable changes were found regarding personal strength and appreciation of life. Results also revealed significant linear and quadratic relationships between PTSD and PTG. Results are discussed in light of past research on psychological responses among firefighters and first responders.

Individual, Community, and National Resiliencies and Age: Are Older People Less Resilient than Younger Individuals?

OBJECTIVES The resilience of older and younger Israelis was investigated. DESIGN AND SETTING A representative sample of the Jewish population in Israel (N = 1,022) was used. PARTICIPANTS The participants were three adult age-groups (18-35, 36-64, and 65+ years). Half of them were women, and they evenly represented left-wing and right-wing political attitudes. MEASUREMENTS Resilience was measured by the ratio of strength and vulnerability of the individual, the community, and the nation. RESULTS Older participants did not differ from younger people in sense of danger; reported lower level of distress symptoms; and showed higher individual, community, and national resilience scores based on strength to vulnerability ratio, compared with younger individuals. CONCLUSIONS These data support the contention that older Israelis are more resilient than younger cohorts. Their long direct or indirect experience with wars and terror attacks has not decreased their resilience, and has perhaps even strengthened it.

Individual, Community, and National Resilience in Peace Time and in the Face of Terror: A Longitudinal Study

ABSTRACT The present paper is based on thrice-repeated measures. The sample constituted 561 Jewish Israeli adults who experienced these terror attacks. The study examined individual, community and national resilience and their associations with resilience-promoting factors (sense of coherence, social support, and self-efficacy); as well as resilience-suppressing factors (distress symptoms, sense of danger, and exposure). Results indicated that resilience scores were quite stable across the three repeated measures, whereas sense of coherence, distress symptoms, sense of danger, and exposure significantly changed across the three repeated measures. Sense of coherence was the best predictor for individual, community, and national resilience.

Leveraging social computing for personalized crisis communication using social media

Introduction: The extensive use of social media in modern life redefines social interaction and communication. Communication plays an important role in mitigating, or exacerbating, the psychological and behavioral responses to critical incidents and disasters. As recent disasters demonstrated, people tend to converge to social media during and following emergencies. Authorities can then use this media and other computational methods to gain insights from the public, mainly to enhance situational awareness, but also to improve their communication with the public and public adherence to instructions. Methods: The current review presents a conceptual framework for studying psychological aspects of crisis and risk communication using the social media through social computing. Results: Advanced analytical tools can be integrated in the processes and objectives of crisis communication. The availability of the computational techniques can improve communication with the public by a process of Hyper-Targeted Crisis Communication. Discussion: The review suggests that using advanced computational tools for target-audience profiling and linguistic matching in social media, can facilitate more sensitive and personalized emergency communication.

Risk Factors as Major Determinants of Resilience: A Replication Study

The present study was conducted in the context of current concerns about replication in psychological research. It claims that risk factors should be regarded as an integral part of the definition of individual resilience, which should be defined in terms of the balance between individual strength or protective factors, and individual vulnerability or risk factors (IND-SVR). Five independent samples, including 3457 Israeli participants, were employed to determine the effects of resilience promoting and resilience suppressing variables on the IND-SVR index of resilience, and on its two components: recovery from adversity, and distress symptoms. Five path analyses were employed for determining the role of distress symptoms as a measure of psychological resilience, as compared to other indices of this resilience. Results indicated the major role of risk factors (distress symptoms) as an integral component of resilience. This role was generally replicated in the five investigated samples. Risk factors are legitimate, valid, and useful parts of the definition of psychological resilience. Resilience research has shifted away from studying individual risk factors to investigating the process through which individuals overcome the hardships they experience. The present data seem to suggest that this shift should be reexamined.

Differences in posttraumatic stress characteristics by duration of exposure to trauma

Ongoing exposure of civilian populations to war and terror is associated with adverse responses beyond those specified in DSM-5 for PTSD. Current PTSD assessment practices are not fully sensitive to the complex symptomatic picture observed among individuals exposed to ongoing stress and are therefore limited for use in these situations. The current survey aimed to portray the posttraumatic characteristics most salient to ongoing exposure to political conflict. A questionnaire enquiring about various aspects of the posttraumatic consequences of ongoing exposure to political conflict as compared with those associated with a single exposure to trauma was disseminated to therapists throughout the country. Participants were asked to rank 75 posttraumatic characteristics for their relevance to each trauma type (about the symptom frequency and severity) and item mean scores were compared. The sample consisted of 66 responses valid for analysis. Our findings pinpoint some of the posttraumatic characteristics most salient to ongoing exposure to political conflict and highlight the complexity of the posttraumatic picture observed in these situations. Incorporating these in post trauma assessment tools will allow for the development of standardized, reliable definitions, which in turn will allow for more accurate diagnosis and more effective treatment protocols.

Enhancing Community Resilience during Emergencies by Building Organizational Resilience in Routine Times

Hadas Egozi-Farkash, Odeya Cohen, Mooli Lahad, Limor Aharonson-Daniel Department of Emergency Medicine, Recanati School for Community Health Professions, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653 Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel Department of Psychology, Tel-Hai College, Galil-Elyon 12208, Israel