The Journal of Neurobehavioral Sciences
Yazarlar: Muhammad Sami Bilal , Beenish Sami , Fatima Taufeeq
Konular:-
DOI:10.5455/JNBS.1495568155
Anahtar Kelimeler:-
Özet: Disasters are known to change people’s lives, both victims and their carers. Rescue and relief workers are also significantly affected by the psychological consequences of disasters. To assess the psychological impact of 8th Oct 2005 earthquake of Pakistan on the health care providers who worked in the affected areas. A group of health care providers who worked in the disaster affected areas for 6 months, belonging to the Armed Forces were approached through the heads of their organizations after a lapse of this time period. Since there is a central computerized record of all the personnel who worked in the relief work, it was relatively easy to track down the participants who provided relief work in earthquake of Oct 2005. The participants were initially contacted on phone and then subsequently interviewed and asked to make responses to a battery of psychological instruments and questionnaires, designed to measure different psychosocial distresses and disorders at 10 years post-earthquake. The data collected was compared with an age and gender matched controls. The results showed General Health Questionnaire – 28 (GHQ-28) ‘Caseness’ in 79.3% of the cases, Impact of Events Scale (IES) measured psychological distress in 27.1% of the cases, Compassion Fatigue Questionnaire (CFQ) established emotional fatigue in 75% of cases and 68.3% of controls and poor Social Support was established in 15.2% of the exposed group. Moreover, the difference amongst the scores of Exposed Group and the Controls were statistically significant (p=0.04). The GHQ-28 positive cases showed high scores on IES (33.3% scored above the cut-off score) and CFQ (77.7% reported emotional fatigue) and poor scores on SSQ (17.8% reported unsatisfactory social support). Caregivers and relief workers are at risk of developing psychological distress and compassion fatigue in disaster situations. Inadequate logistics and more than 20 days of stay in the affected areas are associated with increased risk of traumatization that is palpable even after a period of 10 years. Adequate disaster management planning is necessary to facilitate performance of the relief workers and prevention of secondary traumatization