HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS – PSYCHIATRIC PROFILE AT THIRTEEN MONTHS AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE

ABSTRACT

Background: Disasters are known to change people’s lives, both victims and their careers. 

Aims: To assess the psychological impact of 8^th Oct 2005 earthquake on the health care providers who have been working in the affected areas using different psychological instruments designed to measure psychiatric and psychological distress and disorders.

Methods: A group of health care providers who worked in the disaster affected areas for the initial Emergency phase of 6 months, belonging to the Armed Forces were approached through the heads of their organizations. They were interviewed and asked to make responses to a battery of psychological instruments and questionnaires, designed to measure different psychosocial distresses and disorders at 13 months post earthquake. The data collected was compared with an age and gender matched control group.

Results: 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 (76.7% reported emotional fatigue) and poor scores on Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ) (17.8% reported unsatisfactory social support).

The data show high scores on IES, CFQ and SSQ in the sample group as compared to the control group, thereby indicating a strong relationship between disasters and the psychological state of relief workers.

Conclusions: Care givers 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. Adequate disaster management planning is necessary to facilitate performance of the relief workers and prevention of secondary traumatization.