Citation

Nakagawa Y. Nat. Hazards 2017; 88(3): 1825-1844.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11069-017-2948-6

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This phenomenological study aimed to explore the lived experiences of households after the installation of seismic hazard mitigation measures. Unlike studies aimed at identifying the causal mechanisms behind household behavior, the present study focused on the subjective meaning of these experiences. A total of 17 households that had adopted seismic retrofitting were interviewed; data from six of these households were purposefully selected and analyzed in detail using Giorgi's phenomenological psychological method. The data were reduced to a single structure according to which the installation of the seismic hazard mitigation measure was considered a dilemma related to perceptions of vulnerability versus the awkwardness of getting started, which developed into another irreconcilable dilemma related to feeling safer versus an awareness of absolute safety. In this process, a sense of life coherence was established, which enabled the participants to accept the irreconcilability. On the basis of these findings, this study proposes a new approach of promoting earthquake preparedness, in which the central point is practitioners assisting households to create their own coherent life stories to deal with these dilemmas. It sheds light on the importance of how practitioners listen to households, rather than of how practitioners inform households.

Language: en