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Disasters have devastating short and long term psychological, social, economical, developmental, ecological and political impact. Developing countries are more vulnerable to the impact of disasters because of poverty, meager resources, illiteracy, poor infrastructure, lack of trained manpower and poor knowledge of disaster mental health. The people of Jammu and Kashmir in September 2014 witnessed one of the most devastating catastrophes in the history of the state. The destruction around has left the entire society traumatized which undoubtedly increased mental health problems in a significant proportion of those directly affected. In response to traumatized event(s) individuals tend to display various emotional and social instabilities in the form of wide range of emotional and behavioral symptoms including anxiety, irritability, and aggression, hopelessness suicidal ideation, low self-esteem, flash back of stressful event etc. Research evidence of National and international level regarding psychological consequences of disasters has also found the same. Keeping in view the importance of mental health care for disaster affected population, the present study was carried out with the objective to analyse psychological impact of disasters. Using a multi pronged approach this paper further highlighted how family, community, social workers and mental health professionals can play key role in preventing people from carrying the burden of poor mental health throughout their life.
Keywords: disaster, traumatized, psychological, multipronged, Kashmir
Disaster is a multi-faceted crisis situation which brings disequilibrium in the normal functioning of a society. Disasters are events which devastate local capacities, often producing human losses, injury and damage to the affected communities (Satapathy, 2012). They can be categorized into natural disasters and man-made disasters. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, storms, and droughts, in their aggregate now occur with greater frequency than civil dissension (Hagman, 1984). Man-made disasters include nuclear accidents, oil spills, factory explosions, terror attacks, wars etc. Floods account for more than a third of all natural disasters, but earthquakes cause the most deaths and have the greatest economic impact (Gittelman, 2016). A total of 2,392 disasters occurred between 1900 and 1986 which means one disaster occurred somewhere in the world approximately in every two weeks. Since the beginning of the century every year more than half amillion persons have died in disasters (US AID, 1986). Floods are the most common type of...