LIVED EXPERIENCES AND COPING STRATEGIES OF FLOOD SURVIVORS IN SELECTED DISTRICTS OF KERALA STATE.

Title of the topic

Lived experiences and coping strategies of flood survivors in selected districts of Kerala state.

Introduction

Floods are the most frequent type of natural disaster and occur when an overflow of water submerges land that is usually dry. Floods are often caused by heavy rainfall, rapid snowmelt or a storm surge from a tropical cyclone or tsunami in coastal areas.

Floods can cause widespread devastation, resulting in loss of life and damages to personal property and critical public health infrastructure. Between 1998-2017, floods affected more than 2 billion people worldwide. People who live in floodplains or non-resistant buildings, or lack warning systems and awareness of flooding hazard, are most vulnerable to floods as per World Health Organization.

India is highly vulnerable to flood. Out of the total geographical area of 329 million hectares (mha), more than 40 mha is flood prone. Floods are a recurrent phenomenon, which cause huge loss of lives and damage to livelihood systems, property, infrastructure and public utilities. It is a cause for concern that flood related damages show an increasing trend.

During 2018 and 2019, Natural Hazards (NH) in India damaged 1,557,000 houses, affected 17 lakh hectares of crop land, and killed 2400 people and 123,000 animals.3 Flood became recurrent cause among the NH. Many a people get affected with the transient and long standing impact of flood. It disrupts established ways of living and causes extensive damage to livelihood, property, infrastructure, and public utilities.

The severity of  flood was in it’s severe form due to extreme rainfall in the Indian state of Kerala during August 2018, a severe flood affected 13 districts.6This devastating flood caused extensive damage, affecting more than 5 million people and killing 440.7

The Indian state of Kerala was badly affected by its worst Monsoon rain in last 100 years. The flash flood claimed 483 lives and many people went missing. 14.50 lakhs people were forced to move to more than 3000 relief camps. A total of 57000 hectares of agriculture crops were destroyed and according to state government an approximate estimate of the loss was more than annual outlay of the state.

Need for the study

In India, people exposed to NHs endure extreme adverse consequences, including personal injury, community dislocation, destruction of property, disruption of social structure, and death of loved ones.9 Consequently, survivors face several post-hazard challenges, such as residential instability, inability to fulfill basic needs, unemployment, financial problems, and family conflicts. Survivors exposed to stressors during NHs are at risk of experiencing multiple bereavements, insecurity, profound property loss, and damage to social and economic infrastructure. These stressors play a key role in shaping the physical, psychological, and social functioning of survivors. Death of adult family members and loss of house, household property, crops, and workshop tools endanger their lives and challenge their existential outlook.

 Living with adverse consequences, challenging circumstances, and traumatic memories subsequently diminishes survivors’ capacity to cope with and recover from a NH. In developing societies, 80 % of people exposed to a hazard experience short-term mild distress, 15–40 % moderate to severe distress, 20–40 % mental disorders or other psychological morbidities, and 0.5–5% a long-term disorder.10Among adult survivors of the 1999 supercyclone, for example, 50 % developed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within 3 months11, and among adult survivors of the 2004 tsunami, 26.9 % developed PTSD within 14 months.12 However, in the aftermath of a NH, survivors can also show positive transformation. While some survivors never bounce back, some recover slowly, others recover quickly, adapting well and showing resilience.

Several studies describe a course of positive transformation following a traumatic event. The more time since an event, the greater the scope of adversarial growth.13 Most positive changes are established between 2 weeks and 2 months, and persist at least 1 year following the critical event, with significant growth stabilizing over a period of 3 years.14,15 Survivors report reduced mental anguish and increased stability with the passage of time after a traumatic event. While time acts as a healing mechanism for survivors, the factors that facilitate survivors’ ability to deal with adverse consequences have not been thoroughly studied. This study attempts to fills this gap undertaking a qualitative inquiry on 2018 Kerala flood survivors.

Aim

To explore the lived experiences  and coping strategies of flood survivors of Kerala.

Research question

What are the lived experiences of flood survivors  and coping strategies used by survivors?

Objectives of the study

1.     To explore the lived experiences of flood survivors of Kerala.

2.     To describe the coping strategies used by the survivors.

Operational definition

Phenomenology

A qualitative research tradition, with roots in philosophy and psychology, that focuses on the lived experiences of humans.In this study, phenomenology refers to the study of lived experiences and coping strategies used  by the flood survivors

Lived Experiences

Lived experiences are defined as the way that a person experiences and understands his or her world as real and meaningful. Lived meanings describe those aspects of a situation as experienced by the person in it.

In this study, lived experiences are defined as the experiences of the flood survivors of  include stresses, problems faced like physical, mental, social, financial and coping resources adopted by them. It is assessed through in-depth one-to-one audio-taped interview.

Flood Survivors

Persons who are being affected with flood and remain alive after the flood when others are died.

Coping Strategies

Coping strategies refer to the specific efforts, both behavioral and psychological, that people employ to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize stressful events assessed through in-depth one-to-one audio-taped interview.

Materials  and  Method

**Research  Approach:**Qualitative Approach

Research  Design: Descriptive Phenomenological Design

Variables: Research variable- lived experiences and coping strategies.

Setting of the study: Flood survivors in Pathanamthitta  district in Kerala

**Data collection period:**July to December 2022

**Study period :**Till December 2023

**Sample:**Flood survivors in  Ranni and Peringara panchayats of Pathanamthitta  district in Kerala

Sampling Technique: Purposive Sampling

Measures & Tools

It includes socio-demographic sheet and semi-structured in depth one-to-one  interviewing with memoing.

Tool development and validation

Tools were prepared by rigorous literature search and extensively by reviewing research literature elaboratively. Review of literatureregardinglived experiences and coping strategies of flood survivors in selected districts of Kerala state were done. In semi-structured open-ended interview guide, 10 open ended questions were framed. .Expert opinion was taken for selected demographic variables, flood related variables, and open-ended interview guide and correction were made accordingly before finalizing the tool. Validity of the tool and interview guide has been done by 10 experts including psychiatrist, disaster management expert and experts from the field of qualitative research and psychiatric nursing.

Inclusion criteria:

Persons who are physically present during the flood disaster.

Whose age between 18-85 years.

Exclusion criteria

Person who is unable to communicate.

Method of data collection

Ethical clearance committee approval taken. Informed written consent will be taken from participants of the study.

The purpose and the details of the study will be explained to the subject and assurance will be given regarding the confidentiality of the data collected.

Plan for data analysis

The qualitative data obtained in the study was analyzed using Colaizzi (1978) framework (Polit & Beck, 2010).

Plan for analysis for qualitative data is as follows:

Data analysis will be guided by Colaizzi (1978) framework.

The basic outcome of this method is the description of the meaning of an experience often through the identification of useful themes.

Themes are a way of describing large quantities of data in a condensed manner.

Familiarisation and identifying significant statements

The responses of the participants will be to read and reread to make the researcher aware of the meaning of the responses and to develop a meaning as a whole. The responses will be given to five experts for verbatim check.

Formulating meanings and clustering themes

The statement from the responses will be sorted out based on the researcher question and what directly related to the experience of patients with Hepatocellular carcinoma. All verbatim will be analysed by five experts to sort out themes and subthemes.

Developing an exhaustive description and producing the fundamental structure

The findings of the qualitative data will be covered under different themes and incorporation of all findings into one or the other category be ascertained to avoid missing responses in the process of coding.