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

Abstract

Background: When disasters occur, humanitarian relief workers frequently deploy to assist in rescue/recovery efforts.

Aims: To conduct a systematic review of factors affecting the psychological wellbeing of disaster relief workers and identify recommendations for interventions.

Method: We searched MEDLINE®, Embase, PsycINFO® and Web of Science for relevant studies, supplemented by hand searches. We performed thematic analysis on their results to identify factors predicting wellbeing.

Results: Sixty-one publications were included. Key themes were: pre-deployment factors (preparedness/training); peri-deployment factors (deployment length/timing; traumatic exposure; emotional involvement; leadership; inter-agency cooperation; support; role; demands and workload; safety/equipment; self-doubt/guilt; coping strategies) and post-deployment factors (support; media; personal and professional growth).

Conclusions: 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.

• Disaster
• humanitarian relief
• mental health
• psychological impact
• relief work

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Til Wykes and Dr. Alison Beck for their guidance on the search strategy.

Declaration of interest

Financial support from Service User Research Enterprise, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London/National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit. N.G. runs a small company providing psychological support to trauma-exposed organisations and is President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society. The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Emergency Preparedness and Response at King’s College London in partnership with Public Health England (PHE). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health or Public Health England.