The devastating pair of earthquakes that struck Türkiye last week left many survivors in need of seeking psychological services and support amid the strong fear of reliving those moments again, the specialists pointed out, placing a call to citizens to take treatment in some disaster polyclinics opened in psychiatry clinics throughout the country in case of reactions that they have difficulty coping with.
Dr. Furkan Bahadır Alptekin, a psychiatrist from Istanbul's Başakşehir Çam and Şakura City Hospital, stated that the disaster affected everyone, noting that "the priority of the people who experienced the earthquake is to hold on to life.''
''If they have experienced physical trauma, if they need shelter, food, etc., it is a priority to complete them and provide support. Then comes the question of psychological needs, and psychological support becomes required,'' Alptekin said.
Explaining that the complaints of people who are currently receiving psychological and psychiatric support may increase with intense stress, Alptekin pointed out that people who have never felt the need to receive psychiatric support before may also feel this need during the complex process.
Reiterating that reactions of reliving the event of the disaster over and over, even a month after the earthquake, and experiencing feelings such as intense unhappiness and the inability to enjoy life is normal, the doctor also noted these signs do not always represent illness or mental disorder. However, if such complaints increase rather than pass, Alptekin said psychiatric and psychological support might be required.
The doctor, in his interview with Anadolu Agency (AA) also stated that a disaster polyclinic has been put into service since the first day to serve the disaster victims in Başakşehir Çam and Sakura Hospital. "Our hospital is a hospital where people from disaster areas come, were saved under the rubble or otherwise exposed to the trauma and brought here for support.''
''In these wards (disaster polyclinic), we try to help out our other inpatients from other units in case of need. The body's reactions to intense stress are actually about maintaining its survival. There may be reactions such as being afraid as if I am not here or having a nervous breakdown. If our earthquake victims have such reactions that they have difficulty coping with, or if their relatives feel anxiety about their life related to their psychiatric, or psychological condition, if they are very intense, or if they feel that insomnia and other symptoms are at a level that is difficult to cope with, they can receive service from these disaster polyclinics opened in psychiatry clinics across Türkiye,'' Alptekin underlined.
A psychologist also working at the same hospital, Çetin Daşlı, stated that the whole of Türkiye has experienced the pain of the recent earthquakes and noted they provide psychosocial interventions to earthquake survivors.
''We direct to services such as psychological first aid, psychoeducation and crisis intervention. We meet with people in these services. Our aim in psychological first aid is to reduce the reactions to be affected by traumatic stress. We aim to perform psychological triage. We try to understand the person's disability, disadvantage, previous psychiatric history, freezing reactions, survival guilt and embarrassment. Such interventions are needed to reduce possible post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reactions and diagnosis," Daşlı pointed out.
Stating that trauma is an "injury," Daşlı said that "we have to heal that injury, psychological trauma, by wrapping it together somehow.''