2023-11-11 07:29:00
For more than a week, the heavy toll of storms and floods changed the life of tens of thousands of people. Géraldine Zamansky, journalist for the Health Magazine on France 5, returns today to the symptoms and disorders that can be caused by this type of climatic event.
franceinfo: Once their physical safety is ensured, should we not forget to offer psychological help?
Géraldine Zamansky : As the days go by, these events can be profoundly destabilizing, because they call into question the safety of people in their own homes. THE theoretically protective place par excellence. With hours of anguish during the unleashing of the elements, during the two storms. Their human and material toll is heavy. And this week, many families had to “leave everything” to shelter from the floods.
Do all these situations generate extreme levels of stress?
Absolutely. The longer the time spent “under threat”, the later help came, the more this level of stress increases, and is likely to leave traces. Dr Nathalie Prieto, national referent of our medical-psychological emergency network, explained to me the experience acquired since the major floods of the early 2000s, in the Somme and Gard.
The cells will be set up, to get as close as possible to the victims, and identify signs of great suffering, which are not always easy to identify. People who do not cry, do not express their distress, but seem to be on “automatic pilot”, repeating gestures or words “in a loop”, looking a little lost… A sort of state of astonishment, for which a Psychological help is essential.
Beyond these first days, can the impact appear after a few weeks?
It should be remembered that being upset by such an event is normal, and should not be considered a disorder that should be treated immediately. But if some sort of relief does not appear over time, if sleep disorders persist, worsen, with recurring nightmares, if images come back in “flash” in specific places, or at specific times precise, so it’s better “not to wait for it to happen on its own”.
A study carried out among Xynthia victims in 2010 showed that there were significant risks of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress syndrome. Dr Prieto considers that this risk can be aggravated by the birth of a permanent feeling of insecurity, linked to the repetition of disasters, with climate change. We’re all going to have to somehow learn to live with it, without developing too much eco-anxiety.
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#risks #psychological #trauma #floods