PSYCHOLOGICAL DEBRIEFING INTERVENTION: FROM THE LENS OF DISASTER VOLUNTEERS

Abstract

The experience of posttraumatic stress is a sign of discomfort feeling and miserable situation especially for flood survivors. Being a first responder to the victims, the disaster volunteers are not only support providers for moral and psychological services, but also agents to reduce disaster-related-stress. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the key experiences of volunteers as the first responder in using psychological debriefing intervention with disaster victims. There were 20 volunteers from different agencies involved in this study. The semi-structured interview sessions were utilized for data collection. Based on the thematic analysis process, the findings indicated that the volunteer’s resilience skill, emotional stability, and social altruism have been found to be the major volunteers’ attributes in conducting psychological debriefing intervention. Volunteers’ suggestions on implementation the psychological debriefing intervention for Malaysian context was also provided

Keywords

• volunteers
• psychological debriefing
• volunteers’ attributes
• post disaster management