Effects of wildfire on adolescents in Volusia County Florida.

Recent studies of children and adolescents who had experienced a residential, industrial, or wildfire have suggested a causal link between fire disaster and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related psychological distress. The devastating consequences of fires and burns rank sixth among major causes of injury and death among infants to 19 year olds. Once established, PTSD in children may be chronic and often debilitating. Not everyone, however, is equally affected by the stress of experienceing such an event, and understanding various risk and protective factors has become an important reseach issue. Exposure and loss are considered to be primary factors in the emergence of post-traumatic symptomatology in most disaster-response models. Individual characteristics have also emerged as important moderators to consider. Given that coping efforts play important roles in the onset and maintencnce of a wide range of psychological distress and psychopathology during childhood and adolescence, coping strategies are another likely source of youth's differential vulnerability to the effects of disaster. Research, however, has been negligent with respect to the inclusion of children's coping as a factor in disaster response. Studying the effect of coping efficacy and coping strategy as predictors of outcome after exposure to disaster may help to identify those children and adolescents who are most likely to experience post-traumatic distress symptoms. These variables may go a long way in clarifying the relationships between previously delineated explanatory factors and outcome symptomatology