Page 69 - IJPS-10-2

International Journal of
Population Studies Climate change and mental health of adolescents

Figure 1. Conceptual structure of the factors and effects of climate change.

(Hofer & Messerli, 2006). The country’s susceptibility to technique. To gather evidence, inductive reasoning was
flood disasters has increased significantly due to changes utilized through complete interviews with 53 teenagers
in nature, rapid population growth in floodplains, and (25 girls and 28 boys) living in flood shelters in the eastern-
widespread poverty that forces people to live in floodplains northern portion of Bangladesh from June to July of 2022.
(Dewan, 2015). Even in “normal” years, approximately Simple random sampling was used for participant selection.
20% of the area of Bangladesh (31,000 km ) is flooded, The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-7) and the post-
2
while as much as 80% of the land area is at risk of flooding traumatic stress disorder (PTSD-2) were used to assess
(Monirul Qader Mirza, 2002; Varis et al., 2008). depression and PTSD, respectively, drawing evidence from
The effects of floods on people’s livelihoods are the interviews. In addition, a large number of secondary
disproportionately severe, particularly regarding income sources, including journals, publications, conference papers,
and employment (Parvin et al., 2016). As a result of losing newspapers, and government documents, were extensively
explored and reviewed to triangulate the collected data.
homes and means of support, many victims of floods are left To make comparisons, interviewees’ points of view were
defenseless. Particularly vulnerable are the impoverished, who consistently taken into consideration throughout the
reside in rural locations prone to flooding (Shimi et al., 2010; process. Verbatim transcription was used to offer an
Younus & Harvey, 2013). One to 2 million tons of grains, or 4 in-depth account of how floods affect teenagers’ mental
– 10% of yearly rice output, were lost due to devastating floods health and provide a thorough picture of their mental
in 1988, 1998, 2004, and 2007 (Islam et al., 2010).
condition. Variations and patterns in the data emerged
Recently, in the middle of 2022, another devastating as the research progressed, resulting in an accurate study
flood spread widely in the northeastern part of Bangladesh. that guided researchers in the direction of the subject or
Households and properties were washed away. Countless person to be further investigated to evaluate or contrast
deaths have been reported (Daily Star, 2022). The Ministry the growth of the data analysis. All data were analyzed and
of Disaster Management and Relief of Bangladesh interpreted manually.
(MDMR) stated that around 7.28 million people were
affected, around 0.2 million houses were damaged, and the 3. Results
economic loss was 1.030 million USD (MDMR, 2022). Floods have significantly disrupted the everyday routines
of those affected, leading to a noticeable shift in their
2. Methods
lifestyles, especially among adolescents. As schools were
The qualitative study conducted as a part of this research shut down, there was no place to play, adolescents were
used purposeful sampling as its primary data collection forced to remain in the same location, and there was no

Volume 10 Issue 2 (2024) 63 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.0339