Clinical psychologist from Ukraine reports on screening of Chornobyl children (04/23/00)

Clinical psychologist from Ukraine reports on screening of Chornobyl children

by Myroslaw Bytz Jr.

MADISON, N.J. - Drew University hosted Dr. Irina Grishayeva for a lecture on April 11 on her work with the children of Chornobyl's outlying oblasts in commemoration of the 14th anniversary of the nuclear disaster in Ukraine. Based in Kyiv, Dr. Grishayeva is psychosocial component coordinator of the Chornobyl Childhood Illness Program (CCIP), Medical Service Corporation International.

The program for the evening, sponsored by the Russian Studies Department of the College of Liberal Arts and the Drew Theological School's Office of Continuing Theological Formation, featured, in addition to the Ukrainian psychologist, the group of Drew University specialists who intermittently work with her in Ukraine. Present in the audience were members of the Drew University Russian Club and Drew ministry students who will accompany the group to Ukraine in May, as well as local Ukrainian Americans.

The first speaker, Michael J. Christensen, Ph.D., director of the Drew Doctor of Ministry program and affiliate assistant professor of spirituality, has been working with Dr. Grishayeva in Ukraine for two years, funded by a $3 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The government grant was initiated in order to provide means for screening the youth of northern Ukraine for thyroid cancer, the only illness conclusively attributed to radiation exposure. Dr. Christensen first familiarized the audience with Chornobyl and its horrible past, and with the steps the CCIP is taking to assist those in need in the territory most affected by the disaster.

Four centers in the cities of Rivne, Cherkasy, Lutsk and Zhytomyr have been established for the project. Mobile units, equipped with both a medical doctor and a psychologist, are sent from each center to the various rural regions of Ukraine near Chornobyl. When they arrive, they immediately visit the school in each city, and begin screening children age 12-18 for psychosocial problems, such as depression, and for thyroid enlargements and other illnesses.

The medical component of the program is straightforward enough; the psychological component is more complex and difficult. To explain this complexity and difficulty, Dr. Arthur Pressley, another member of the CCIP group, was called to speak. When screening children for depression, psychologists had to be aware that depression in Ukraine is the norm; most children face many social issues regardless of the Chornobyl disaster's aftereffects. Violence, alcoholism, poverty, crime, contaminated food and soil, and hopelessness are some of the many disagreeable conditions that these children must face every day.

A key question, then, is then how to discern that population who suffered from depression as a result of Chornobyl from the naturally occurring depressed population. Dr. Pressley went on to explain the psychological testing procedure, an initial depression inventory questionnaire (translated into Ukrainian by Dr. Grishayeva) coupled with a one-on-one session between each child and a trained social worker.

Dr. Grishayeva is one of only several hundred clinical psychologists in Ukraine, according to Dr. Christensen. She received her doctorate in psychology in 1998 from the department of sociology and psychology at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy; her dissertation topic was "Cognitive Determinants of AIDS Risk Perception and Safe Behavior."

Her many achievements and experiences include being visiting psychologist at the University of London in 1997, specializing in training and health psychology in Belgium, being research assistant in the joint European-Ukrainian project of clinical psychology and child care, and specializing in cognitive functions and disorders of personality in individuals affected by the 1986 Chornobyl disaster at the laboratory of clinical psychology in Kyiv. This was Dr. Grishayeva's first trip to the United States.

Dr. Grishayeva spoke about the two components of the CCIP program: the medical and the psychosocial. The medical component consists of doctors screening children for thyroid enlargements, and the psychosocial component, of which she is coordinator, screens children for severe depression.

The Ukrainian doctor presented some revealing statistics about the state of children in Ukraine's northern oblasts of Rivne, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr and Volyn. For example, in Rivne, out of 5,208 children screened, 250 had nodules in their thyroid glands (4.8 percent), while 43 percent had some other pathology. Out of 4,691 children screened for depression, 787 out of 975 have been referred to a health care provider; the remaining need to be referred, she reported.

Many children are sent to sanitoriums for month-long stays during which they have access to psychological counseling in a safe and comfortable environment. Even so, most children are left without adequate care because of the scarcity of both funding and psychologists. Funding is something that must come from governmental or other institutions, but the task of increasing the number of counselors has been taken on by the CCIP group.

The CCIP brings over American social workers who train almost anyone who is interested in the basic principles of stress management, family issues and identifying stressors. The Americans noted that all the trainees had tremendous experience in relationships and were very eager to learn and to help, so the process is at least greatly successful, if not easy.

As a final remark, Dr. Grishayeva stressed the importance of remembering Chornobyl. "Many children in Kyiv do not even know about Chornobyl or where it is, because their parents work very hard to forget about the tragedy," she explained.

"The naturally occurring instances of thyroid cancer in the population of the world is 1 in 1 million," noted Dr. Christensen, "in one Ukrainian city seven out of 100 have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Something is going on here." Dr. Christensen also expressed concern with the fatalism characteristic of Ukrainians around the Chornobyl area, as many of them see the disaster as the work of God, as a precursor to the end of the world.

In her studies of the occurrences of depression in children, Dr. Grishayeva said she observed a generally optimistic attitude towards their treatment - a sharp contrast to their parents' overall view of psychology. Elders regard her project as unnecessary and a burden to their lives. They may have a point: most people must be concerned only with food, shelter and clothing in order to merely survive; happiness is irrelevant when mere survival is the only goal.

But for the newest victims of the Chornobyl disaster, and the people who seek to increase their quality of life, security and contentment, the CCIP program is an important step in the right direction.

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