Psychological First-Aid Experiences of Disaster Health Care Workers: A Qualitative Analysis

• Published in: Disaster medicine and public health preparedness Vol. 14; no. 4; pp. 433 - 436
• Main Author: Choi, Yun-Jung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.08.2020
• Subjects: Burnout; Data analysis; Data collection; Disaster relief; Disasters; Education; Firefighters; Health care; Health problems; Health services; Interviews; Mental disorders; Mental health care; Phenomenological research; Post traumatic stress disorder; Qualitative analysis; Qualitative research; Research methodology; Workers; disaster health care workers; qualitative research; psychological first-aid; mental health; disaster
• ISSN: 1935-7893; 1938-744X
• DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2019.87

Disaster health care workers experience much greater stress providing psychological first-aid and suffer from the indirect experience of traumatic events. This study examines how disaster health care workers experience disaster mental health. Twenty-one disaster health care workers recruited from fire stations, community mental health service centers, and disaster trauma centers in Korea participated in this study. Data were collected via in-depth interviews and qualitatively analyzed according to Colaizzi's phenomenological approach. Disaster health care workers' experiences of disaster mental health can be analyzed according to 4 theme categories: (1) commitment to one's duty as a disaster health care worker; (2) powerlessness and lack of confidence; (3) incident shock and burnout; and (4) incomplete and inadequate healing. In order to prevent mental health problems and support the disaster health care workers, it is necessary to develop and provide effective, nationwide psychological first-aid training, as well as disaster trauma recovery programs that are tailored to Korean sociocultural context and use immersive digital health care/education technology.