title: Quantitative impact of mental health preparedness training for public health professionals.
abstract: Coordinating and integrating mental health topics into emergency preparedness planning is a critical step for ensuring effective response to the psychological issues connected with trauma. In order to remedy the current lack of integration, potential response providers must receive effective mental health preparedness training. The current study provided mental health preparedness training to public health and allied health professionals in Kansas and assessed the impact of the training on perceived mental health preparedness knowledge. Participants included 157 potential first and secondary responders from public health and allied fields who attended one of 10 training presentations on mental health emergency preparedness. Pre- and post-presentation, participants responded to six Likert-scale questions about their perceived knowledge of topics and level of mental health preparedness. Questions addressed common psychological responses to disaster or terrorist events, stress reactions of specific populations, psychological resiliency, mental health preparedness integration, and level of agency preparedness. Post-training, participants reported statistically significant (p<0.001) increases in perceived level of knowledge on all topics. Participants were also significantly more likely (p<0.001) to report that their agency could respond to the mental health issues related to a disaster or emergency. The current study provides data about gaps in practitioner knowledge regarding mental health preparedness in Kansas. While the self-report nature of responses is a limitation, these findings serve as the first step toward producing and implementing effective mental health preparedness information and training on a wide scale.
authors: Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Wichita 67214-3199, USA. shawley@kumc.edu
authors: Suzanne R
authors: SR
authors: Hawley
authors: Gary C
authors: GC
authors: Hawley
authors: Theresa
authors: T
authors: St Romain
authors: Elizabeth
authors: E
authors: Ablah
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000488:Allied Health Personnel / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology; D004189:Disaster Planning; D004637:Emergency Services, Psychiatric; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007615:Kansas; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D015980:Public Health Practice