MAKATI SCIENCE TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF THE

PHILIPPINES
4410 erl bldg, Old Sta. Mesa St, Sampaloc, Metro Manila

SOBREVEGA, CAESAR JOHN P.

BS PSYCHOLOGY 3C
DISASTER AND MENTAL HEALTH
PROF. JHAVEN MAÑ AS

Assignment:3

Summary of Module 1 & 2: Psychological First Aid

In the first module on Introduction to Disaster and Mental Health on last part we been discussed the
definition of Psychological First Aid (PFA) including its Core Principles, as a first responder in our
community what should we do, and what shouldn’t,

 We all know that PFA is a way of dealing or assisting people immediately aftermath of a
disaster, it is also mandated to ease the initial distress or extremely anxiety that they felt
after a disaster especially to those victims of it.

 The core principles of this are: Contact and engagement on a victim, ensure their safety and
make them comfortable, ensure their stabilization specifically in their mental health, gather
information of them if applicable, give practical assistance to them, ensure the
connectedness on the victims, tell them some information coping if applicable, link them to
collaborative services that might lessen their distress.

 If we are the first responders of our community to conduct the PFA we should ensure the
safety of the victims, important thing also is we are calm while talking or assisting them,
ensure the connectedness on them, ensure our competent on a task as a volunteer of future
professional or our self-efficacy, and lastly ensure that we can give help and hope on
everyone that needs our services,

 In applying PFA a first responders shouldn’t do this: Force someone to talk, u can’t ask a
person who is being traumatize aftermath of disaster, don’t address an assurance that you
can’t keep, don’t ask a victim a crucial or serious things, be thankful on what services that
you have instead of criticizing the services available.

 We all know that Disaster can result in a wide range catastrophe, it can disrupt our normal
daily doings and also our habitat, and also can result in psychological problem like distress.
Everyone is affected by a disaster “No one who experience a disaster is untouched by it”.

 Distress can affect our Behavioral, Emotional, Physical and Cognitive being.

 Most of the people who exposed in disaster and experience traumatic stress recover after a
year or years. The most intense reaction that a victim may suffer is during first week and
lessen after a week/s and so on.
 Factors that indicated that professional needed or known as “3Rs” it is a Reactions of a
victim it can be by confusion, mix emotion or simplifying telling thoughts of self-harm or
harming others, while the Risk is the a situation that expose the victims to danger, those are
departure of love ones, or might be injury of someone, or having delusion that they are going
to die, and the last is Resiliency that tells how the victims rebound or bounce back from the
catastrophe and how to effectively fight the distress.

 The only lack of us is Training, however as a knowledgeable and future professional we

should try to engage ethical considerations on our community even they are not our patients
and also ensure the safety, confidentiality, and the timing to start serious conversation
towards the victims.