The present paper is an attempt at clarifying the psychological effects and the causes among residents living near the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, Kazakhstan. Our research team conducted the survey by questionnaire and interview from 2002 to describe overall image of sufferings from Nuclear Tests. In this paper, we focus on the answers from those who responded to questions concerning psychological symptoms.
The result showed that;
(1) 17.3 % of the residents reported some kind of psychological symptoms.
(2) The villages in higher percentage of respondents who complain their psychological symptoms are Kainar (63.5 %), Saryzhal (54.4 %) and Dolon (40.0 %).
(3)Some symptoms have a possibility that related to bad health condition, distance from the center of explosions, and concrete experiences of nuclear tests (for example, seeing flush light etc.)
Our results suggest that the understanding or awareness of exposed to radiation is one of the main causes of their psychological effects. Bad health condition might also be one of the causes of psychological effects.