ArticleFrontiers in public health2014
Facebook, quality of life, and mental health outcomes in post-disaster urban environments: the l'aquila earthquake experience.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Using the Internet to Cope With Emotional Problems: The Role of Preference of Online Communication in Adolescents Across 18 Countries.Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2026Article
- The Impact of Prolonged Stress of COVID-19 Pandemic and Earthquakes on Internet-Based Addictive Behaviour and Quality of Life in Croatia.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- COVID-19 Vaccination in Italian Children: The Limits of Parental Rights.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Quality of Life and Multilevel Contact Network Structures Among Healthy Adults in Taiwan: Online Participatory Cohort Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- Social Media Use and Mental Health: A Global Analysis.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Dispositional Optimism and Disaster Resilience: A natural experiment from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2021Article
- Measuring mental health burden in humanitarian settings: a critical review of assessment tools.Global health action · 2020Review
- Neighborhood Ties Reduced Depressive Symptoms in Older Disaster Survivors: Iwanuma Study, a Natural Experiment.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- The Impact of Quarantine and Physical Distancing Following COVID-19 on Mental Health: Study Protocol of a Multicentric Italian Population Trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Article
- Association of Postdisaster Depression and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder With Mortality Among Older Disaster Survivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.JAMA network open · 2019Observational
- The mental health needs of women in natural disasters: A qualitative study with a preventive approach.Journal of family medicine and primary careArticle
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7 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundAn understudied area of interest in post-disaster public health is individuals' use of social networks as a potential determinant of quality of life (QOL) and mental health outcomes. A population-based cross-sectional study was carried out to examine whether continual use of online social networking (Facebook) in an adult population following a massive earthquake was correlated with prevalence of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and QOL outcomes.
methodsParticipants were a sample of 890 adults aged 25-54 who had been exposed to the L'Aquila earthquake of 2009. Definition of "user" required a daily connection to the Facebook online social network for more than 1 h per day from at least 2 years. Depression and PTSD were assessed using the Screening Questionnaire for Disaster Mental Health. QOL outcomes were measured using the World Health Organisation Quality of Life BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) instrument. Logistic regression was carried out to calculate the prevalence odds ratios (POR) for social network use and other covariates.
resultsTwo hundred and twenty one of 423 (52.2%) men, and 195 of 383 (50.9%) women, had been using Facebook as social network for at least 2 years prior to our assessment. Social network use correlated with both depression and PTSD, after adjusting for gender. A halved risk of depression was found in users vs. non-users (POR 0.50 ± 0.16). Similarly, a halved risk of PTSD in users vs. non-users (POR 0.47 ± 0.14) was found. Both men and women using online social networks had significantly higher QOL scores in the psychological and social domains of the WHOQOL-BREF.
conclusionSocial network use among adults 25-54 years old has a positive impact on mental health and QOL outcomes in the years following a disaster. The use of social networks may be an important tool for coping with the mental health outcomes of disruptive natural disasters, helping to maintain, if not improve, QOL in terms of social relationships and psychological distress.
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