Doctors advise to stop watching “disaster” clips
Saturday – 20 Rajab 1444 AH – February 11, 2023 AD
Cairo: Eman Mabrouk
It is true that the survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, which killed more than 24,000 people in the two countries, were blessed by God, but science indicates that they may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder for years to come. The Turkish Disaster Management Authority said in a statement, on Saturday, that about 92,697 people had been evacuated from the affected areas, up to five days after the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northwestern Syria on Monday.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, warned that “the limits of the catastrophe are not yet clear before our eyes.” For its part, the World Health Organization indicated, earlier after the disaster, that the number of those affected by the earthquake may reach 23 million people.
In addition to the direct health effects, observers point to the psychological and mental impact that may extend for years beyond the direct results. Dr. Hisham Rami, a professor of psychiatry at Ain Shams University and Secretary General of the Egyptian Psychiatric Association, confirmed that what happened amounted to a catastrophe, and according to previous studies conducted on survivors of similar incidents, some are at risk of developing “post-traumatic stress disorder.” He says in statements to Asharq Al-Awsat: “This type of psychological disorder has been identified since the beginning of the twentieth century, and a number of researches have been conducted on survivors of wars and natural disasters to determine its symptoms and ways to recover from it, and I expect that quite a few of the earthquake survivors and perhaps those who follow Close, perhaps they are now vulnerable to this situation ».
The professor of psychiatry describes the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder as “the person suffers from levels of tension and anxiety that he cannot bear, with a rapid heartbeat, excessive sweating, and a disturbance in body temperature. The person also brings back moments of horror to memory and repeats them.”
According to Rami’s predictions, those who are at risk of developing this condition are the earthquake survivors first, but “those who follow the events of the disaster through social media, and drown in hours of watching harsh clips that depict moments of terror, put themselves at risk of developing (traumatic) disorder, and the matter may develop.” to the necessity of treatment.
Regarding ways to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder, Dr. Zizi El-Sayed, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Fayoum University, advises the necessity of working on two parts to manage the disorder. Life for the survivors, including shelter, food and health care. And she added, “The second part is recovering from the psychological effects left by the disaster, and here the treatment may extend to include four stages.”
The four stages of recovery come according to the severity of the symptoms, and “Al-Sayed” explains: “Some people may be exposed to a complex shock, in which feelings of fear mixed with loss if the person witnessed the death of another person, and here the matter may be more complicated.” And she added, “Survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder go through stages, starting with re-copying the incident, then the stage of escaping and avoiding any stimulus that causes the survivor to remember the events, and the severity of the stage may reach the point of partial memory loss. The third stage includes changes in the survivor’s view of the world and events, while the fourth stage is called science (emotional freezing), and it is a stage in which the person loses the ability to deal with events in an expected manner.
Specialists believe that natural disasters and public events may have relatively acceptable results compared to the effects of personal trauma, and they attribute this to “faith and participation.”
For his part, Dr. Hisham Ramy says that community support comes at the forefront of the means of recovery for the survivors of the earthquake disaster, and he explains: “Studies have shown that social support, whether by the family or institutions, brings immediate results to stave off the effects of the trauma.” He also explains, “Providing safety is the responsibility of those around the injured, Then comes the role of spirituality by reinforcing the concepts of faith.”