Objective: The purpose of this study were to analyze the experience of injury, the impacts, and the management of injury of the victims and their families from the bomb explosion in Hat Yai district, Songkhla province.
Material and Methods: The subjects were a group of wounded victims and families who came to receive nursing treatment at public and private hospitals in Hat Yai for the total number of twenty-five cases. Among these cases, twenty-one cases were wounded victims who were particularly selected because of the severity of the injuries sustained. The remaining four cases were families of wounded victims which were selected because of their acquaintance with the wounded victims as the principal care takers or direct family members who lived currently with the wounded victims. The in-depth interview technique of qualitative study was performed using a self-administered questionnaire.
Results: The informants presented their experiences of the trauma caused by the explosion together with the meaning they gave to the event. Four categories of experiences and their meaning were identified: 1) Like being in the unstable event, 2) like being in the severe event, 3) the event affected many people, and 4) the event is related to karma. As regards the help received during the event, the informants presented their feelings, which were divided into two categories: 1) Feeling impressed by the help received 2) Feeling that the help received was not enough and that there was a lack of equal treatment. The effects received by the explosion could be described in 3 categories: 1) Physical effect, 2) mind effect, 3) economic and social effect. For the physical effect, there were 2 subcategories: 1) Trauma and lost organs and 2) difficulties in body movements and, as a consequence, a decrease of daily activities. For the mind effect, there were 3 subcategories: 1) Being angry, 2) being frightened and suspicious, and 3) accepting of the event. For economic and social effects, there were 3 subcategories: 1) Changing role in the family, 2) decrease of income, and 3) decrease in social interactions plus a low quality of life. Furthermore, the study found that informants would have two processes for trauma management that were 1) solving problem by themselves, and 2) telling about their experience to other people. However, the informants gave four suggestions to improve the helping system, these were: 1) victims should be continuously taken care of, 2) there should be a clear classification system for individual help, 3) patients should have their rights to select the clinic, and 4) there should be fast transportation system for patients.
Conclusion: This study received a body of basic knowledge that can help us to prepare for events that might happen in the future by using the experiences of the victims and their families in order to identify needs in the physical, mental, social and spiritual contexts with a view to improve the coping strategies in relation to these needs.