مطالب

Background: Bangkok's urban landscape features approximately 6,000 high-rise towers housing millions of residents in what was historically considered a seismically stable region. However, the March 28, 2025 magnitude-7.7 Myanmar earthquake triggered widespread psychological distress among Bangkok's vertical communities despite causing minimal structural damage. While existing disaster psychology research demonstrates that individual appraisal processes and coping resources influence distress outcomes, high-density vertical urban environments remain largely unexplored in disaster literature, particularly within Asian megacities where socioeconomic inequities may compound vulnerabilities. Aims: This study aimed to quantify earthquake-related emotional distress changes, evaluate the effectiveness of different coping strategies, examine socioeconomic and disability-related moderators, and test Transactional Model of Stress and Coping pathways among Bangkok's high-rise population. Methods: A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted two weeks post-earthquake using multistage stratified probability sampling. From 120 randomly selected buildings across Bangkok's districts, 5,200 households received survey invitations, yielding 2,104 completed responses (40.5% response rate). Participants were adults residing at least six months in buildings exceeding eight floors. Validated Thai-adapted instruments included the Kessler-6 for psychological distress, Insomnia Severity Index, and custom scales measuring emergency preparedness, social support-seeking, and self-care behaviors. Statistical analyses employed paired t-tests, ANOVA, MANOVA, and bootstrap mediation procedures with effect size reporting. Results: Clinically significant insomnia prevalence increased from 27.4% to 61.8% post-earthquake. Emergency preparedness behaviors were associated with lower anxiety levels, while social support-seeking correlated with reduced insomnia severity. Significant disparities emerged across housing tenure, income levels, and disability status, with renters demonstrating lower preparedness rates than homeowners (54.6% versus 71.9%). Mediation analyses revealed that preparedness and support-seeking behaviors collectively explained 37.7% of the association between perceived seismic threat and psychological distress outcomes. Conclusion: Perceived earthquake threat, rather than actual structural damage, emerged as the primary driver of psychological distress in Bangkok's high-rise communities. While emergency preparedness and social support provided substantial protective effects against anxiety and insomnia, these resources were inequitably distributed across socioeconomic groups. These findings highlight the critical need for inclusive disaster preparedness policies that address structural barriers affecting vulnerable populations in rapidly urbanizing megacities facing emerging seismic risks.

Tasks are as useful devices for identifying learners’ needs and thus for designing specific purpose courses. Hence, the present study aimed at examining the viable effects of three varieties of task manipulation, i.e., oral reproduction, role-play, and group discussion, on the accuracy and fluency components of Iranian EFL learners’ oral speech. For the sake of homogeneity of the participants, 60 L1 Persian EFL students were selected through Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and divided into three 20-participant comparison groups: Oral Reproduction Group (ORG), Role-play Group (RPG), and Group Discussion Group (GDG). Each of the three comparison groups was treated just through a single task. ORG, RPG, and GDG were treated by oral reproduction, role-play, and group discussion tasks, respectively. The participants were pretested and posttested by the speaking part of Preliminary English Test (PET). The three groups were exposed to ten sessions of treatment, each of which lasted one hour and thirty minutes. The results of the study, obtained through ANOVA and Post Hoc analyses, revealed that the three types of task manipulation had significant influence on the fluency and accuracy of the participants’ speech. It was also revealed that GDG, treated through group discussion type of task manipulation, outperformed the other groups in terms of accuracy and fluency achievement. Tasks are hence recommended to be used in EFL teaching and testing contexts in that they are assumed to be effective tools to enhance the accuracy and fluency of English learners’ oral speech.