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Development of Child Well-Being Indicators Four Years After the Tsunami Disaster

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Well-Being, Resilience and Quality of Life from Children’s Perspectives

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research ((BRIEFSWELLBEING))

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Abstract

The southern state Tamil Nadu was the worst hit part of the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster in 2004. Mostly, fishing families were affected. The present study was one work-package of a larger research project with the acronym ‘post-Tsunami.’ The main purpose of the present study was to develop contextualized child well-being indicators. With other words, the aim was to find out what makes up child well-being from a caregiver’s and child’s perspective in the given subculture more than four years after the Tsunami disaster. Participants of focus groups were 112 Tsunami-affected children either living with their biological parents or in a family-based out-of-home care, and their 56 caregivers. The age of children was eight to 17 years. Data were analyzed on the basis of the qualitative research methodology Grounded Theory. More or less, the following domains and categories could be identified out of children’s and caregivers’ qualitative data: cognitive domain (academic), social domain (appreciation, civic life, family, peers, social skills), psychological domain (coping, nature, Tsunami-related symptoms), physical domain (health), and economic domain (materialism). The group of caregivers as well as the group of children lived in either a biological family or a family-based out-of-home care. The results were discussed by comparing the two groups of caregivers and the two groups of children.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Silvia Exenberger & Barbara Juen

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  1. Silvia Exenberger
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  2. Barbara Juen
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Correspondence to Silvia Exenberger .

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Exenberger, S., Juen, B. (2014). Development of Child Well-Being Indicators Four Years After the Tsunami Disaster. In: Well-Being, Resilience and Quality of Life from Children’s Perspectives. SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7519-0_4

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