Psychological first aid (PFA) and disasters

Abstract

A disaster is commonly thought of as an occurrence that results in property damage and physical injuries that exceed the response capabilities of local resources. History teaches that disasters also result in a surge in demand for psychological support amongst survivors and disaster responders. This surge quickly exceeds local response capacities and has the potential to exceed even the mental health resources that may be imported from neighbouring jurisdictions and disaster relief agencies. Efficient and effective acute mental health intervention is, therefore, needed. However, the effectiveness of traditional multi-session counselling during and shortly after disasters has been questioned. Instead, the utilization of efficient and effective crisis-focussed psychological interventions has been suggested as acute phase alternatives. This paper asserts psychological first aid (PFA) may be considered a specific crisis-focussed disaster mental health intervention for use during and after disasters. PFA is designed for use in assessing and mitigating acute distress, while serving as a platform for psychological triage complementing more traditional psychological and psychiatric interventions. PFA may be employed by mental health clinicians as well as ‘peer responders’.

Keywords:

• Psychological first aid
• PFA
• crisis intervention
• resilience
• peer support

Disclosure statement

Dr. Everly and Dr. Lating teach psychological first aid and receive royalties for related publications.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.