University of New Haven Approach by Modern Business Organizations Discussion
Week 6 – Dealing with the mentally ill provides many challenges – clinical, social, emotional, etc.
Discuss the unique emergency preparedness needs of patients with emotional and psychiatric patients.
State why this is so difficult for us to manage.
Here are three different answers you can paraphrase really good one answer
Answer 1
Discuss the unique emergency preparedness needs of patients with emotional and psychiatric patients.
Planning on how you will respond in case of a disaster is significant. Individuals and families cope with disaster by preparing in advance and collaborate with their community. in case of mental health patient, this will require extra attention to details and needs that others may not have to think about. Several researchers state that disaster response planning has overlooked the special need of individuals who suffer pre-existing mental health condition such as schizophrenia, dementia, addictions and bipolar disorder. However, all emergency medical technicians and other first responders must have a training to identify those with a pre-existing mental condition and find out their special need in case of disaster.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 26.3% of the US adult population experience mental disorder within a specific year. With 22.3% of those diagnosed as severely mentally ill. Individuals with mental health issues are dependent on their community resources for their routine mental health care and information about disaster and awareness.
There are several considerations of needs for the patients with mental health issues. One of the most important is medication, mental health patients have a daily routine of medication but usually, they do not have a reserve of medication available. In the event of a disaster, there is no guarantee that the patients will have enough medication on hand to take with them. Furthermore, some of the mental health patients may refuse to leave their homes despite being unsafe or they cannot be in crowded environments which can cause increased in the agitation and distress.
Finally, coordination between agencies is really important to reach those with mental health issues to provide preparedness information, develop a disaster plan, and identify a contact person in case of emergency. All these efforts will help the patient to know what to do, where to go, what to take with them and how they can access medication in case of a disaster.
State why this is so difficult for us to manage.
Usually, it is difficult to deal with mental health patients in their daily life and it became more complicated during a disaster. Mental health patients depend on other family members most of the time and in case if disaster if they were separated it becomes an issue for the responder to communicate and understand the patients. In addition, in case of evacuation mental health patients experience fear if they deal with a stranger and they feel that they are unsafe which make it difficult to emergency responders and manager to handle it if they need to evacuate them as soon as possible.
Disaster Plans Should Include Those with Mental Illness. (2015, October 06). Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/news/2011/05/24/disaster-…
Garvie, P. (2011). EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND DISASTER CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE MENTALLY ILL. The Cusec Journal. Retrieved from http://www.cusec.org/publications/newsletter/winte…
Fabian, E., Abramson, L., & Willis, S. (n.d.). State Rehabilitation Authorities and Their Role in Responding to the Employment Needs of People with Serious Mental Illness. Plenum Series in Rehabilitation and Health Sourcebook of Rehabilitation and Mental Health Practice,117-126. doi:10.1007/0-306-47893-5_10
Answer 2
Discuss the unique emergency preparedness needs of patients with emotional and psychiatric patients.
I utilized the databases for disaster medicine and management and found a unique article from Psychiatric Services to the subject of emergency preparedness for mental health. Dr. Robert J. Ursano reviewed the book by Drs. Frederick J. Stoddard Jr., Anand Pandya and Craig L. Katz Disaster Psychiatry: Readiness, Evaluation, and Treatment. I shortened what can be a long response to the question of what goes in to preparing for mental illness in the event of a disaster. How could psychological first aid prepares us for such a difficult job in a chaotic environment. Mental illness has no face especially when it needs a professional to diagnosis many of the diseases associated with mental illness.
Physical injuries can be apparent and receive a level of severity making triage and treatment speedy. Looking over a person who could look necessarily normal may suffer from mental illness and transition to an unsafe condition without warning. Training and education come with diagnosing disaster victims with mental illness and getting the proper treatment, therapy or medication if they are showing new signs of phycological or psychiatric needs. How can professional’s diagnosis and separate those with special needs of mental health without being discriminatory?
“The first task of disaster mental health care is a needs assessment to determine resource allocation for the delivery of care. The volume thoroughly describes this task and explains its key importance to forming the disaster mental health care team. Usually mental health care is not what is needed in the first 24–48 hours, during which life-sustaining operations are most urgent.” (Ursano, R. J., 2012)
State why this is so difficult for us to manage
To have previous knowledge of the expected needs of mental illness would be the best way to prepare when it comes to disaster preparedness. This means mental health professionals would need to work closely with medical teams to train on the signs of chronic mental illness and newly diagnosed mental illness. This would make specific behavior and triggers concerning those that might be abnormal to some require a better equipped response and to only communicate to psychological first aid in the event of those behaviors and triggers.
The difficulty with this is having the appropriate training and also a significant amount of self-care for individuals. Dealing with cases of substance abuse for someone who has never experienced this mental illness can be a concern for taking time to process feelings and keeping a open line of communication with supervisors to ensure first responders and especially volunteers are able to cope with all these new experiences with the mentally ill.
Citation
Ursano R. J. (2012). Disaster Psychiatry: Readiness, Evaluation, and Treatment. Psychiatric Services. (63)4. American Psychiatric Association. https://ps-psychiatryonline-org.ezproxy.philau.edu/doi/10.1176/appi.ps.20120p398
Answer 3
During a disaster scenario, there are many issues to consider when attempting to adequately prepare for the needs of patients who suffer from mental illness. Many of these patients are on medications to manage their illness and during a disaster may lose or run out of their medications potentially causing withdrawal symptoms as well as an exacerbation of their mental illness. One in a shelter, this population could have a more difficult time getting their medications replaced or adjusted because these patients may not want to disclose their mental illness to a health care provider in a shelter setting due to the stigma associated with mental illness. This population can take a long time to establish trust with a medical providers and may feel particularly disrupted by a change in providers.
Additionally, these patients are more likely than people who suffer from physical chronic diseases to not have received comprehensive and effective care for their disease even prior to the disaster. Throughout the country, mental health services are extremely underfunded making it difficulty for patients to find an affordable mental health care provider. The disaster itself can worsen a person’s mental health conditions due to the tremendous stress and change in routine that are a part of the disaster expereince. For example, a patient who had struggled with panic attacks and insomnia for many years may have found ways to control these anxiety symptoms, but may begin to experience panic attacks again during the disaster.
Sometimes these patients can also cause an ethical conflict. Health care providers are required ethically to make decisions that uphold the ethic of bodily autonomy. But if the client becomes a threat to themselves or others their autonomy becomes superceded and they an become forcibly committed. Navigating finding a safe place to restrain or hold someone if they are a threat to themselves or others during a disaster where it may be difficult to reach a hospital.
In general, law enforcement officers and health care professionals are not well trained in managing people who may be having a PTSD flashback or a psychotic episode and these patients may be seriously injured or even killed when they actually need medial treatment. These patients are difficult to care for during a disaster because pervasive discrimination against people with mental illness means that this community is more likely to homeless, estranged from their family and in a more precarious position prior to the disaster. For all of these reasons it is extremely important that security officers and health care providers receive training on caring for this population prior to a disaster occurs.
It is important to remember that people with mental illnesses also can offer a lot in disaster situations and need to not be further stigmatized. A person who has struggled with anxiety their whole life and has taught themselves breathing exercises to control that anxiety, could teach people in a shelter how to do exercises to calm their own anxiety. All members of our community can contribute to the health of the community during a disaster.
Sources
Nauert, R. (2012). Disaster Plans Should Include Those wIth Mental Illness. Retrieved from https://psychcentral.com/news/2011/05/24/disaster-…
US Department of Health and Social Services. (2018). Planning For Psychiatric Patient Movement During Emergencies and Disasters. Retrieved from https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/planning/abc/Documents/psychiatric-patient-movement.pdf
US Department of Veteran Affairs. (2018). The Effects of Disaster on People with Sever Mental Illness. Retrieved from https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/trauma/disast…
Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress. (2016). Addressing the Needs of the Seriously Mentally Ill in Disaster. Retrieved from https://www.cstsonline.org/assets/media/documents/CSTS_Seriously_Mentally_Ill.pdf
