JOURNAL: Mental Health Services Required after Disasters: Learning from the Lasting Effects of Disasters REACTION: Indeed,

Disaster is always present and it is always one-step closer to us. Especially here in the Philippines, where typhoons are the frequent visitors to our area and it always leaves destruction of livelihood here in the country. This is devastating in the part of the people as well especially that some typhoons claim lives of thousands of people and itll be hard for the affected families to cope up with the loss of their loved ones. I remember, during the Typhoon Sendong, which struck our country in December of last year, many lives were affected and many people died from that turmoil. Most of the time, Ill feel sad whenever I watch the news about it and to see live pictures of the places that the said typhoon hit. I also feel sad for those families that are crying because some of their family members died and the most heartbreaking part of it is that the week after the disaster, its Christmas. Imagine how sad their celebration will be. This is the reason why I picked this journal since we dont deal with the physical aspects alone but we also deal to the familys mental, social, and emotional state as well. In other words, we also provide them Mental Health care since disaster is a Traumatic event to people especially in children. Disasters can happen anytime and at anyplace. Natural disasters are so frequent that one generally attributes it to fate. Sometimes the destructive forces of Nature become so strong that all our plans and policies fall like cards. We become helpless infront of the mighty Nature. When everything comes to an end, wherever one looks, the sight of the helpless victims fills our eyes. Childrens become orphans. Husbands lose their wives and vice-versa. The scenes are extremely painful. Lots of money in the form of grants flows for reconstruction. Throughout this article, it came into my mind that its really important to provide psychosocial care to the victims of disaster. Disaster is indeed a stressful event to people. It can lead to depression or other psychological disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Ineffective coping of the people will be observed as well during these times. I still remember, one person even committed suicide due to depression. Psychological support has become an important component of the disaster preparation and response repertoire. This occurred in the background of the need to understand mechanisms for the reduction of hazards related to disasters. I also learned that from past disasters, there are some places where able to formulate plans and care regarding to a particular disaster. It came out that when that disaster happened again in their area, they were prepared and the number of victims was lessened. To conclude that, I believe that they have learned from their lessons and they really want to preserve lives and livelihood.

Providing psychological car to people will depend on the groups of people with different mental health need. Those groups are:
1.

People who are at risk of distress, mental health problems, and mental disorders, principally anxiety, depressive, and substance use disorders, consequent on their direct and indirect involvement in events and who present new and additional demands on mental health services. People who have continuing needs for mental health services for preexisting conditions, but whose care is threatened by challenges to the business continuity of preexisting mental health services consequent on network and community dislocation.

2.

3. People whose involvement in an emergency provokes or precipitates the

relapse of a preexisting mental disorder.

4. People who are responders and whose mental health might be put at

raised risk consequent on their work. Based on these groups, we should have specific care that will be allotted for them since their needs vary. Furthermore, all interventions must be planned and specific to people. It should be realistic, specific, and also time-bounded. Looking back, there has been a striking, rapid, and dramatic change in scientific understanding of and public approaches to recognizing and managing the psychosocial trauma that may occur as a consequence of disasters. The position taken in this journal is that psychosocial and mental healthcare services should be planned and actively integrated components of all disaster relief and broader healthcare responses. Furthermore, Disasters test civil administrations and health services capacity to act in a flexible but well-coordinated manner because each disaster is unique and poses unusual challenges. The health services required differ markedly according to the nature of the disaster and the geographical spread of those affected. Epidemiology has shown that services need to be equipped to deal with major depressive disorder and grief, not just posttraumatic stress disorder, and not only for victims of the disaster itself but also the emergency service workers. The challenge is for specialist advisers to respect and understand the existing health care and support networks of those affected while also recognizing their limitations. In the initial aftermath of these events, a great deal of effort goes into the development of early support systems but the longer term needs of these populations are often underestimated. These services need to be structured, taking into account the pre-existing psychiatric

morbidity within the community. Disasters are an opportunity for improving services for patients with posttraumatic psychopathology in general but can later be utilized for improving services for victims of more common traumas in modern society, such as accidents and interpersonal violence.

NURSING IMPLICATIONS: 1. TO DISASTER NURSING SUBJECT: This would help us learn that we should not only focus on the physical aspects when rendering care during disaster. By reading this journal, all the information stated in this journal would help us to realize that rendering psychological care to victims of disasters is important. This will help us as well to formulate plan of cares for the people so that when a disaster comes, we will be prepared to implement the plan of care that we formulated to our patients. This would also help us to decrease the incidence of having psychological disorders during disaster. 2. TO NURSING PRACTICE: This will help nurses to be enlightened that focusing also on the psychological aspects of care during disasters. With proper training of course, Nurses will be able to provide essential psychological care to disaster victims. This will enable nurses to help victims to go back into the normal state of their lives. 3. TO NURSING RESEARCH: This will enable Nurse Researchers to conduct related studies regarding on Psychological Care during disasters. This will also help them to conduct studies on providing the said care to them. Aside from that, Nurse Researchers will be able to improve this study if there is some flaws to this article.