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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

The role of psychiatrists in international conflicts and disasters

State of art symposium: psychiatrists role in international conflicts and disasters

Although psychiatrists take on multiple complementary roles in disaster response, they are not consistently included in disaster planning and response frameworks.

The symposium takes as its starting point the insufficiently defined contribution of psychiatrists within disaster response systems, despite disasters increasingly exposing communities to psychological distress and mental disorders. It examines the empirical evidence reviewed on psychiatrists’ roles across different disaster settings in relation to disaster preparedness, training, policy, and service development. Evidence from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, transport accidents, and the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that psychiatrists take on multiple complementary roles: providing specialist clinical assessment and treatment, leading and coordinating the multidisciplinary mental health response, supervising and training non-specialist providers, supporting continuity of care for people with severe mental illness, contributing to research and evaluation, and strengthening local mental health capacity. Despite these important contributions, psychiatrists are not consistently included in disaster planning and response frameworks, and the evidence base in this field remains limited. Strengthening psychiatric leadership in disaster preparedness, operational planning, workforce development, and research may improve the effectiveness and sustainability of mental health and psychosocial support in future emergencies.

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