ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Disaster and Emergency Medicine
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1555125
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrated Perspectives on the 2023 Turkey and Syria Earthquakes: Advancing Understanding and Preparedness across Earth Sciences, Engineering, and Public HealthView all 3 articles
Concerns of Earthquake Survivor Mothers for Their Children and the Role of School Leadership in Addressing Them
Provisionally accepted
Meral Taner Derman1
Şeyma Türen2*- 1Bursa Uludağ University, Bursa, Bursa, Türkiye
- 2Okan University, Istanbul, Türkiye
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This study aims to examine the change in the concerns of mothers with preschool children before and after the earthquake and the role of school administrators in relieving these concerns. The research was carried out in a holistic multi-case study design, which is one of the qualitative methods, and was carried out in a study group consisting of 20 mothers and 5 school administrators living in the temporary housing area in Hatay. The data were collected through semi-structured interview forms and analyzed by content analysis method. The findings showed that games and entertainment activities were at the forefront of mother-child relationships, but they were also a reflection of the earthquake. It has been revealed that mothers' future plans focused on positive goals such as their children growing up in a healthy environment before the earthquake and becoming successful individuals by receiving a good education, but after the earthquake, these plans were negatively affected due to financial and social losses, uncertainties and disruptions in education. It has been shown that mothers had general concerns about the education, security and social development of their children before the earthquake, but these concerns became more concrete and intense after the earthquake. Mothers reported serious concerns, particularly about living conditions, psychological effects, education, and the future. School administrators, on the other hand, resorted to methods such as summer schools, social activities, guidance services and financial support to alleviate the concerns of mothers. He suggested improving housing conditions, opening vocational courses, strengthening infrastructure and involving psychosocial support teams. The research emphasized that the physical, social and psychological effects of natural disasters on individuals are multidimensional and revealed the critical role of school administrators in crisis management.
Keywords: earthquake, concern, earthquake survivor mothers, child well-being, School leadership, Post-disaster support, maternal anxiety
Received: 14 Mar 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Derman and Türen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Şeyma Türen, Okan University, Istanbul, 34959, Türkiye
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