engleski

Organization of psychosocial help to psychotraumatized persons during war

Croatia has experienced the war, 1991-1995, and many segments of its population have been faced with severe traumatic events. The need for organized pychosocial help to traumatized persons was of the great importance. The network of psychosocial help was established by the Goverment of the Republic of Croatia in 1994. This was the beginning of the National Program of Psychosocial Help to War Victims. The pyramidal model, consisting of five levels of psychosocial help, was used as a strategy in building a social support: 1)preventive programs in mental health, 2)nonspecific psychological help in community, 3)basic psychological help, 4)psychiatric institutionalized help and specific psychological help, and, 5)National coordination and operative planning. During the war, the most of the work was done in a community-based approach, mainly satisfying the current needs of the traumatized people such as food, medication and clothes, crisis psychological interventions, and urgent psychiatric help. In 1999, this organization scheme was replaced by the establishment of the National Centre for Psychotrauma and four Regional Centers for Psychotrauma in Zagreb, Rijeka, Osijek, and Split. In the post-war period, the emphasis was given to psychological and social help in the community, as well as institutionalized approach to treatment of psychotrauma. The latter was organized because of the great number of people asking for psychiatric treatment regarding Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and related disorders. We believe that our experience with psychotraumatized persons can help in oragnizing psychosocial and psychiatric help in the endangered areas of the world as efficiently as possible.

psychiatric help; psychosocial help; psychotrauma; war; Croatia; pyramidal model; community-based approach

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