Risk and resilience factors affecting the psychological wellbeing of individuals deployed in humanitarian relief roles after a disaster

Abstract

As well as role-specific stressors, many occupational stressors not specific to humanitarian relief (e.g. poor leadership, poor support) present a significant health hazard to relief workers. Humanitarian organisations should prioritise strengthening relationships between team members and supervisors, and dealing effectively with non-role-specific stressors, to improve the psychological resilience of their workforce.

Future role aspirations, achievement motivations and perceptions of personal help-seeking among humanitarian aid trainees

“…That is, before entering the field, the trainee group displayed attributes, behaviours and perceptions that have previously been shown to mediate mental health sequelae among HA worker populations, notably anxiety, burnout and PTSD Brooks et al 2015;Comoretto et al 2015;Eriksson et al 2012). This study found that the four factors, motivation and achievement, evolving ideas of HA, social support, and help-seeking attitudes and behaviours, represent potential mediating factors among these trainees.…”

“…Social support represents an important protective factor against adverse mental health effects for the general population, as it appears to provide an effective buffer against stressful experiences Brooks et al 2015;Cardozo et al 2012;Eriksson et al 2012;Musa and Hamid 2008). Social support is defined as emotional and instrumental social interactions that provide an individual with actual assistance or a belief that such assistance is available (Thoits 2011;Hobfoll 1988).…”

“…Past studies in the HA field have found that strong social support may significantly decrease the risk of adverse mental health consequences for workers . Specifically, social support appears to positively predict worker wellbeing, satisfaction (Brooks et al 2015) and resilience (Eriksson et al 2009), as well as mitigate against adverse mental health consequences including psychological distress, burnout (Brooks et al 2015;Cardozo et al 2012;Musa and Hamid 2008), PTSD and depression .…”

Deployment-related difficulties of Japanese disaster relief workers by mission duration: a cross-sectional study

“…However, relief workers may experience stressful situations while at the disaster site (Mitchell, 2011). Subsequently, the stress experienced by these disaster relief workers (e.g., medical professionals, logisticians) often results in mental health problems (Brooks et al, 2015;Maeda, Ueda, Nagai, Fujii, & Oe, 2016). To date, there is limited data about the difficulties faced by relief workers in these challenging situations of international disaster settings.…”

Training the next generation of psychotraumatologists: COllaborative Network for Training and EXcellence in psychoTraumatology (CONTEXT)

“…Managerial and organizational factors can significantly impact humanitarian aid workers’ wellbeing (Brooks et al, 2015; Thormar et al, 2013). Through a realist evaluation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) ‘Caring for Volunteers’ (IFRC Reference Centre for Psychosocial Support, 2012) programme across two conflict or post-conflict settings, Project 5 aims to elucidate how managerial factors can improve volunteer support structures within the IFRC, with a view to developing better policies and guidelines for volunteer care in emergency response settings.…”