Psychological Responses among Humidifier Disinfectant Disaster Victims and Their Families

Yoo, Seonyoung; Sim, Minyoung; Choi, Jungwon; Jeon, Kyoungsun; Shin, Jungha; Chung, Seockhoon; Hong, Sang-Bum; Lee, So-Yeon; Hong, Soo-Jong

In Korea, several types of chemical disinfectants that had been widely used in humidifiers since 1994 were found to be associated with lung injury, including interstitial pneumonitis and widespread lung fibrosis, 1,2 collectively referred to as humidifier disinfectant-associated lung injury (HDLI). In 2011, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Korean Ministry of Environment began a program to collect information on individuals with respiratory disease, including lung injury, who presumed their disease to be related to the use of humidifier disinfectants (HDs), in order to determine the veracity of these claims. Approximately 75.6% of Korean children used humidifiers, and 31.1% of children were exposed to HDs. 3 As of March 2018, the number of cases of respiratory damage reported by people who thought their diseases were related to HDs exceeded 6,000. Among these cases, to date, a total of 416 people (179 deaths and 237 survivors) have been judged as having suffered from HDLI. 4 Though there have been various studies on related issues such as the examination of causal relationships between respiratory damage and HD use, 1,5-9 discussion on a national surveillance system to track toxic chemical substances, 10 and the government's legal liability, 11 few studies focusing on psychological responses among victims have been conducted. Considering that several studies related to the sequelae of toxic chemical substance disasters pointed out physical and psychological symptoms such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression among victims, 12-14 it is important to investigate psychological responses in the aftermath of HD disasters.