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Abstract
The Tsunami on 26 December, 2004, hit six provinces of Thailand and led to considerable loss of lives and property. The mental health needs of survivors were studied. Using the Diagnostic Screening Test for Depression and Stress for Thais, 807 victims were studied in the first two weeks following the tsunami. GHQ-12 was used on 2981 disaster victims within the first two weeks and sequentially in the third, fourth and fifth weeks. In the first week, 19.7% subjects had depression, which rose to 26% in the second week and then fell to 6.8% in the third week and rose again in the following week. The GHQ-12 revealed that above the cut off point of six, 12% subjects had psychological disorder in the second week followed by 15.7% in the third week, which fell to 10.8% in the fourth week and rose marginally again in the fifth week to 12.4%. The normal human response to loss of life among families and friends may be responsible for early high levels but it appears that within a month this starts to settle down. The reasons for this are many. We conclude that disaster management planning and interventions must take psychological morbidity into account.