Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Disaster survivors are vulnerable to physical and psychological injuries. Hospitals must triage victims for distress, to ensure that those who are traumatized or at risk benefit from early psychological intervention. Hospitals also need to manage the influx of walking wounded and distressed family and friends searching for missing loved ones. Hospitals must help to reunite or identify deceased family members in a timely and organized fashion to reduce distress and prevent hospital skipping. The scoping review will summarize recent literature on psychosocial response to disaster to inform future planning. A database search was conducted and abstracts were screened independently by 2 reviewers for inclusion. The search yielded 5,294 articles; 338 were included after abstract review and 138 after full manuscript review. Data extraction is underway. Key themes to be analyzed include: 1) Triage and risk assessment, 2) Response to psychological casualties, 3) Influx of walking wounded and searching loved ones, 4) Family reunification, 5) Phases of disaster response, and 6) Staff wellness. The proposed project includes disseminating the findings of this review, targeting knowledge users to inform hospital-based psychosocial disaster response planning. We will share results with our hospital's Code Orange (Disaster) Steering Committee, other trauma centers and stakeholders in the Greater Toronto Area, in addition to presenting at 3 conferences/meetings, conducting 1 webinar, and preparing 2 manuscripts for open-access submission to peer-reviewed journals. Although existing literature notes the need for effective psychosocial disaster response planning, no prior research has reviewed vital aspects of psychosocial planning for, and response to, disasters. By sharing the results of this review, we will enable local and international institutions to adjust their disaster protocols, which could provide real-world benefit to disaster responders and survivors.