TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2013//
TI  - A Brief Report of Surveillance of Traumatic Experiences and Exposures After the Earthquake-Tsunami in American Samoa, 2009
JO  - Disaster medicine and public health preparedness
A1  - King, Michael E.
A1  - Schreiber, Merritt D.
A1  - Formanski, Stephen E.
A1  - Fleming, Sinclair
A1  - Bayleyegn, Tesfaye M.
A1  - Lemusu, Siitia S.
SP  - 327
EP  - 331
VL  - 7
IS  - 3
N2  - Context:  Rapid mental health surveillance during the acute phase of a disaster response can inform the allocation of limited clinical resources and provide essential household-level risk estimates for recovery planning. Objective:  To describe the use of the PsySTART Rapid Mental Health Triage and Incident Management System for individual-level clinical triage and traumatic exposure assessment in the aftermath of a large-scale disaster. Methods:  We conducted a cross-sectional, comparative review of mental health triage data collected with the PsySTART system from survivors of the September 2009 earthquake-tsunami in American Samoa. Data were obtained from two sources-secondary triage of patients and a standardized community assessment survey-and analyzed descriptively. The main outcome measures were survivor-reported traumatic experiences and exposures-called triage factors-associated with risk for developing severe distress and new mental health disorders following disasters. Results:  The most common triage factors reported by survivors referred for mental health services were "felt extreme panic/fear" (93%) and "felt direct threat to life" (93%). The most common factor reported by persons in tsunami-affected communities was "felt extreme panic or fear" (75%). Proportions of severe triage factors reported by persons living in the community were consistently lower than those reported by patients referred for mental health services. Conclusions:  The combination of evidence-based mental health triage and community assessment gave hospital-based providers, local public health officials, and federal response teams a strategy to match limited clinical resources with survivors at greatest risk. Also, it produced a common operating picture of acute and chronic mental health needs among disaster systems of care operating in American Samoa.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1935-7893
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/dmp.2012.11
ID  - ref1
ER  -