Citation

Forbes D, Doenyas-Barak K, Greenberg N. Lancet Psychiatry 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S2215-0366(24)00166-4

PMID

38852594

Abstract

The impacts of mass trauma on the psychological wellbeing of individuals and communities are well documented, with guidelines and expert statements outlining health-focused interventions promoting psychological recovery. However, such guidelines rarely have recommendations that intersect with relevant government health, resource, and compensation funding mechanisms. Crucially, they often do not heed evidence regarding barriers to, and facilitators of, recovery. In the absence of integrative guidance, health services and government resource and insurance compensation systems frequently work in silos, lacking synchronisation and exacerbating stressors and other barriers to recovery, with iatrogenic effects. Improved coordination and systematic attention to mitigating stressors, reducing barriers, and enhancing facilitating factors would bolster recovery and help prevent the development of avoidable psychiatric disorders and incapacity. Balancing the provision of health services with financial or material resources to optimise the recovery and return to function for survivors, while avoiding pathologising distress or creating unhelpful dependencies on state systems, is challenging but essential.

Language: en