| Abstract | | Earthquakes as natural disasters - disasters which were not caused by men - has distinct characteristics when compared with technological disasters, wars and vandalism. These characteristics together with personality structure of people that surived the earthquake, their social environment and the circumstances in which the earthquake occurred, as well as, the circumstances in which the person was caught at the time of the earthquake, represent the factors that determine the number and the set of people who would suffer from mental disorder: The article gives a detailed description of characteristics of psychic reactions of individuals and a group from the point of view of today's social psychology and psychiatry, as well as, post-traumatic stress disorder a an entirely autonomous nozological unit of psychiatric disorders from 1980 on.
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