Intervención de salud mental en niños expuestos a desastre natural

Abstract

Introduction: This study is part of the mental health intervention, conducted by a child psychiatry team for children exposed to the February 2010 earthquake/tsunami in a community of the VII Region that was strongly affected by the natural disaster. Objective: To describe the intervention and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies implemented for both children and teachers. Methodology: Interventions are described and classi-fed in three categories (1) Case report and child care consulting, referred by their teacher. (2) Psychoeduca-tional workshops for teachers of the intervened school. (3) Self-Care Day aimed at professionals of the same school. The evaluation is done through an anonymous survey designed to measure the effectiveness of the intervention. Results: 33 children were evaluated and treated, the most common diagnoses were adaptive disorders (8/33) and ADHD (11/33), and only 3 patients met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Intervention implementation included psychoeducation for parents (100%), coordination with schools and local health network (100%), counseling (70%) and drug prescription (45%). Only 45% of the cases evaluated had symptoms triggered or exacerbated by the earthquake/tsunami. Regarding teacher evaluation (N: 11), 100% described the intervention as "very good". 90% considered it appropriate to the needs at the moment and as a contribution to their educational work. Conclusions: After events of this nature, many interventions take place to support the affected population. It is important to have more scientific information about the effectiveness of such interventions to prevent the development of post-traumatic psychopathology.