A newly published study has given a snapshot of post-quake psychological distress, finding some people were battling anxiety and depression more than a year and a half after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
The survey, published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal, comes just days after the 5.7 magnitude Valentine's Day earthquake rattled nerves again - and just before the fifth anniversary of the February 22, 2011, disaster that killed 185 people.
Dr Caroline Bell surveyed around 120 of her Christchurch-based colleagues at Otago University to build a picture of how different work roles affected how people coped with disaster. The survey found around 10 per cent of workers were still suffering effects such as stress, anxiety and depression.
"There were people who had prior mental health difficulties, but that wasn't the whole story," Dr Bell said. "There was another whole group of people - and you couldn't really predict why they were having difficulties."
She found those in academic and administrative roles reported the biggest impacts. As previous studies had shown, people suffered not just from the trauma of the earthquake but also the stress of living in damaged homes, unresolved insurance claims, closed workplaces and family moving away.
