Emergency Aid And Disaster Management Students' Experience With The February 6, 2023 Kahramanmaraş Centered Earthquake: A Qualitative Study

Sharing the disaster experiences of individuals helps to better understand the psychological effects that disasters can have on people. The earthquake cente-red in Kahramanmaraş on February 6, 2023 caused many people to be directly or indirectly affected psychologically. In this study, the psychological effects and experien-ces of the process were shared by the Department of Emergency Aid and Disaster Management students between the ages of 21-26, who participated in volun-teer activities in the disaster area and were directly or indirectly exposed to the February 6 earthquake. For this purpose, students were asked to draw three open-ended questions and a picture about the first topic that came to their minds about disaster experiences in order to learn about their disaster experiences by applying the qualitative method study method. The obtained data were evaluated using the MaXQDA qualitative data analysis program. From a behavioral point of view, students are directly or indirectly affected by this disaster, deaths and difficult and limited conditions physically, emotio-nally and behaviorally; In particular, it has been ob-served that the importance of staying calm without panicking and the selection of solid buildings come to the fore. In addition, it is suggested that the use of art therapy applications in further explaining the psychological impact caused by the disasters may be useful in further detailing the conditions that cannot be put into words in terms of disasters and that furt-her studies by experts may be useful in this regard.