Kanakis, Katerina, and McShane, Connar (2014) Resilience to disaster: predicting resilience in a disaster prone community. In: Abstracts from the Australian and New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference. From: Australian and New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference, 5-7 May 2014, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.

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Abstract

Introduction: The ability to predict the level of engagement in preparatory behaviours of a community can provide useful recommendations in increasing such behaviours. The key variables that were investigated to predict preparation included social capital, self-efficacy and perceived threat. The applicability of using the Extended Parallel Process Model to predict preparatory behaviours in a disaster prone community was tested. It was expected that high self-efficacy and high perceived threat would predict an individual's level of preparation for a weather event and that this would be mediated by social capital factors. It was also expected that low self-efficacy and high perceived threat would predict concern which would also be mediated by social capital factors.

Method: A total of 279 (104 males, 172 females and 3 not identified) participants from a disaster prone community in North Queensland completed the questionnaire package. The questionnaire asked participants about their previous experiences with extreme weather events, preparation, concern, perceived threat, self-efficacy, social capital and resilience.

Results: It was found that only self-efficacy predicted preparatory behaviours (p = .01) and this was only mediated by social connectedness (p = .00). Also, only the perceived severity of a future weather event was found to predict concern (p = .00) and this was only mediated by trust (p = .00).

Conclusions: Findings from this study suggest that increasing an individual's self-efficacy and social connectedness will increase the likelihood of the individual engaging in preparatory behaviours. This implies that greater social capital will contribute to improved community preparedness for a future weather event. Thus it would be beneficial for individual interventions and disaster preparedness campaigns aimed at disaster prone communities to target increasing individual self-efficacy and community social capital factors in order to increase the preparation undertaken for a weather event.

Item ID:	35482
Item Type:	Conference Item (Poster)
Related URLs:	Organisation
Date Deposited:	26 Feb 2015 04:22
FoR Codes:	17 PSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES > 1701 Psychology > 170113 Social and Community Psychology @ 100%
SEO Codes:	92 HEALTH > 9202 Health and Support Services > 920209 Mental Health Services @ 100%
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