Psychosocial vulnerability related to catastrophic events

Abstract

In the present work there are exposed the most important characteristics relating to the catastrophic situations. These situations can be classified in three big groups, those caused by natural events (floods, earthquakes, etc), those taken place as consequence of technological accidents (explosion of boilers, nuclear accidents, etc) and finally the provoked ones directly for the man (terrorist acts, armed conflicts, etc). Among the most vulnerable groups in these situation, we can find: women; displaced, refugees and inmigrants; infantile and juvenile population; the group of elderly; the vulnerable subjects who suffer from previous psychic or physical dysfunction and lastly the subjects that carry out emergency works. With regards to psycho-social manifestations, there are approached to non pathological reactions, the most frequent psychic dysfunctions and the psycho-social problems in the infantile and juvenile population by group of ages. Lastly reference is made to the basic characteristics of intervention and the most appropiate approach to carry it out , being the mental health community.