Mental health and psychosocial aspects of disaster preparedness in Thailand

Abstract

After the Asian tsunami, the Department of Mental Health, Thailand developed a national guideline for mental health interventions in disasters based on the lessons learnt from the mental health and psychosocial relief efforts launched. We advocate the integration of social interventions for the affected community into the general mental healthcare, which in turn should be available in the general healthcare setting. This set-up of the mental healthcare delivery system, can provide the daily needs of the community and can be rapidly scaled up in times of a disaster. The organization of the delivery of mental healthcare is discussed in the paper.