Stress management in disasters
Emergency response personnel are unique in that they dedicate their time and energy in assisting persons during stressful times of their lives, for example, after disasters such as hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc. By doing this however, they are themselves repeatedly exposed to very stressful situations. Even though their training prepares them to deal with such situations, the reality is that they have a higher than normal risk for developing post-traumatic stress syndromes, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite all of this having been well documented and the Caribbean’s repeated exposure to natural disasters, the vast majority of Caribbean countries do not have a comprehensive stress management program in place to preserve the psychological well-being of their emergency response and disaster workers. The Office of Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief Coordination Program of the Pan American Health Organization, Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization, took the initiative of bringing resource persons from throughout the region together in late 1998 to develop the Stress Management in Disasters in the Caribbean (SMID) Program.
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