Five Years On, APS Attack Survivors Continue To Suffer Post-Traumatic Stress

A study published by the Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences in 2018 states that the survivors of the Army Public School (APS) attack of 2014 had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) even after extensive therapy.

The APS attack of December 2014 claimed the lives of 132 children and injured countless others. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had claimed responsibility for the attack. This was one of the deadliest attacks on a school in the world.

According to the study, in a sample size of 205 students, 154 had PTSD while 42 had severe PTSD. This comes after students had been attending rigorous therapy for over five months. The researchers say that these statistics, given the context, represent a really high incidence of PTSD, something that needs to be worked on.

They also note that such a high incidence of PTSD was further realized by the fact the 50% of the students in the sample had functional impairments. This meant that their work, chores, friendships and other daily routine activities were also affected by PTSD.

The study was carried out by making 205 students self-report their symptoms in the presence of a trained psychologist who helped relax the students before the process started.

The researchers theorize that this high incidence of PTSD is explained by students being constantly exposed to media and news that talk about terrorist attacks and the loss of life they lead to.

The report’s results are extremely harrowing and the researchers call upon officials to make the system better in order to help these students in the best way possible.

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