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Responses to Children’s Mental Health Needs Following the Chernobyl Disaster

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Book cover An International Perspective on Disasters and Children's Mental Health

Part of the book series: Integrating Psychiatry and Primary Care ((IPPC))

Abstract

This chapter is an overview of neuropsychiatric and mental health research and consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe in children and adolescents. These effects derive from both biological effects of radiation exposure and psychosocial effects of trauma and displacement. With respect to radiological factors, several scenarios of radiation exposure related to children and adolescents will be discussed: (1) exposure in utero, (2) exposure in childhood and adolescence, and (3) particular overexposure of the thyroid to radiation and the subsequent incidence of thyroid cancer. Prenatal exposure has had more objective studies than other exposure types, but findings remain controversial. Among some of the children, the existing data testify to subtle signs of intellectual impairment that are reflected, for example, in a larger than the usual gap between verbal and nonverbal IQ indices. We then discuss the psychosocial effects of trauma and the research that shows children from contaminated territories have many signs of mental health problems, including anxiety, psychosomatic disturbances, and autonomic dysfunction (dysautonomia). After consideration of the mental health needs of children and adolescents following the radiation emergency of the Chernobyl catastrophe, we discuss possible strategies for improving the mental healthcare and psychiatric rehabilitation for these individuals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Psychoneurology, Institute of Clinical Radiology, State Institution “National Research Centre for Radiation Medicine of National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine”, Kyiv, Ukraine

    Konstantin Nikolayevich Loganovsky & Tatiana Konstantinovna Loganovskaya

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  1. Konstantin Nikolayevich Loganovsky
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  2. Tatiana Konstantinovna Loganovskaya
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Christina W. Hoven

  2. New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Lawrence V. Amsel

  3. Tel Aviv University School of Medicine, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Sam Tyano

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Loganovsky, K.N., Loganovskaya, T.K. (2019). Responses to Children’s Mental Health Needs Following the Chernobyl Disaster. In: Hoven, C., Amsel, L., Tyano, S. (eds) An International Perspective on Disasters and Children's Mental Health. Integrating Psychiatry and Primary Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15872-9_10

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