Immediate Psycho-social Support for Disaster Survivors

Abstract

The article describes how psychosocial support, in the immediate and mid-term disaster response for Haitian earthquake survivors in hospitals in the Dominican Republic, ameliorated some of the suffering and prevent the crisis from becoming crystallised into symptoms and complex grief. The support was centred on (1) providing information; (2) facilitating social regulation of emotions; (3) supporting a social support network for the patient; (4) focusing coping efforts; and (5) normalization of reactions. Finally it is described how the crisis made values of caring, compassion and responsibility expressed and shown by the survivors.