Vol. 2 No. 1 (2026)

Research Articles

“We Stayed, But We Were Not the Same": Post-Trauma Adjustment Among Adolescent Survivors of the 2014 Army Public School Peshawar Attack — A Phenomenological Study with Implications for Global School Violence Policy {under peer review}

Published 19-07-2026

  • Sumbal Gilani
    • ,
  • Dr. Salma Siddiqui

Sumbal Gilani
School of Health and Wellbeing, College of Medical Veterinary & Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom (UK)

Dr. Salma Siddiqui
Department of Behavioural Sciences, School of Social Sciences & Humanities, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad (Pakistan)

Abstract

Background: Mass casualty school violence produces profound psychological consequences for adolescent survivors, yet lived experiences of survivors in conflict-affected, Muslim-majority, low-to-middle income country settings remain largely absent from the qualitative trauma literature. The December 2014 terrorist attack on Army Public School (APS) Peshawar, Pakistan, in which 132 students and 9 staff members were killed, represents one of the deadliest school massacres in recorded history and most under-researched in terms of survivor psychology.

Objectives: This study explored the lived experiences of post-trauma adjustment among male adolescent survivors, in the absence of formal psychological support in a conflict-affected, resource-limited setting.

Methods: An exploratory phenomenological design following Moustakas' transcendental phenomenological methodology was employed. Five male survivors participated in in-depth semi-structured Urdu-language interviews six months post-attack at the school. Data was analyzed using phenomenological reduction, horizontalization, and thematic synthesis, with verification through reflexivity journalling, member checks, peer debriefing, and dual supervision. A retrospective COREQ assessment found 28 out of 32 items fully met.

Results: Three domains emerged. Participants experienced pervasive multi-dimensional distress including anger, grief, physiological hyperarousal, intrusive re-experiencing, social withdrawal, and academic deterioration. Participants engaged in active, culturally grounded coping through family, peers, community solidarity, and Islamic meaning-making frameworks including qadr (divine decree), shahdat (martyrdom), and sabr (patient endurance). Post-traumatic growth was evident, encompassing deepened relationships, increased confidence, and civic-national identity reconstruction, with survivors articulating education as an explicit counter-terrorism mission.

Conclusion: Findings are situated within the global school violence literature to argue that the psychological toll on school massacre survivors in the Global South remains systematically under-researched and under-resourced. Collected in 2015, the data represents a historically significant baseline; survivors demonstrated significant distress and endogenous resilience without any formal professional support. Evidence-based recommendations address school-embedded psychosocial frameworks, culturally informed trauma protocols, and mental health policy reforms in Pakistan, with direct implications for Pakistan's National Mental Health Policy.

Keywords

post-traumatic-stress, adolescent survivors, school massacre, phenomenology, post-traumatic-growth, Pakistan, Global South, school violence policy, child protection, mental health systems

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Author Biography

Sumbal Gilani

Sumbal Gilani is a Clinical Psychologist and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Specialist with over thirteen years of experience working across humanitarian, public health, and clinical settings in Pakistan. She currently serves as Child Protection Officer (MHPSS & Prevention) at UNICEF Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where her work focuses on psychosocial programming in conflict-affected and climate-displaced communities. She is an Honorary Affiliate at the University of Glasgow's School of Health and Wellbeing, a BPS Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol), and a Duke-NUS Global Mental Health Fellow (2026). Her career spans UNICEF, WHO Pakistan, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department, academic teaching at NUST Islamabad and the University of Peshawar, and private clinical practice. Her research is shaped by a practitioner-researcher identity forged in some of Pakistan's most underserved and crisis-affected contexts.  

Dr. Salma Siddiqui

Dr. Salma Siddiqui, Ph.D. is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and founding Head of the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan, where she retired from while serving as Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities. A Fulbright Fellow, she was associated with the Center for Prevention of Youth Behavior Problems at the University of Alabama, USA. Her doctoral research produced the Siddiqui-Shah Depression Scale, an indigenously developed screening instrument widely used in clinical research contexts across Pakistan. She is a practicing psychotherapist trained in cognitive behavior therapy and EMDR. She was a member of the psychosocial rehabilitation team that worked with teachers and students at Army Public School Peshawar following the December 2014 terrorist attack, which is the context from which paper directly emerges.

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