Natural and human-made disasters are increasingly common occurrences around the globe (Lopes et al. 2014; Warsini et al. 2014). Systematic research on development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following disasters has been undertaken for more than three decades, with most studies reporting only short-term consequences. Recent reviews suggest that between 20% (North, 2014) and 40% (Neria et al. 2008) of survivors develop PTSD, but the range across studies is extremely broad (5–60% following natural disasters; 25–75% following human-made disasters) (Galea et al. 2005) due to differences in the characteristics/locations of disasters and methodological differences in studies (Norris et al. 2006; Goldmann & Galea, 2014).
