Evidence Aid bulletin: 28 November 2022

We are pleased to announce Evidence Aid’s November 2022 bulletin, containing shortened versions of three of our recent summaries. Please forward this to others who might be interested. Anyone who would like to receive these monthly bulletins directly or has questions about our work should contact Jane Copsey (info@evidenceaid.org). If you like our work and think it is important that we continue into 2023, please consider making a donation here.

Emotional and psychological impacts on healthcare workers of disasters and other mass casualty events. Citation: Rodriguez‐Arrastia M, et al. Emotional and psychological implications for healthcare professionals in disasters or mass casualties: A systematic review. Journal of Nursing Management. 2022;30:298-309.

Healthcare workers experience emotional and psychological issues when dealing with disasters or other mass casualty events and this systematic review brought together the findings of 19 studies on the topic. This research showed that problems experienced by healthcare workers after mass casualty incidents include fatigue and exhaustion, grief, helplessness, fear and frustration. It also found that that they might experience positive emotions such as commitment, satisfaction and pride of providing assistance. The authors of the review concluded that organizations should prevent negative emotional and psychological implications by providing support to nurses and other first responders, encouraging training among healthcare workers, and fostering resilience and flexibility to improve self-care during a disaster. (Full summary available in our Resilient Health Systems and Managing Mental Injuries collections.)

Non-communicable diseases and disasters. Citation: Ngaruiya C, et al. Systematic review on chronic non-communicable disease in disaster settings. BMC Public Health. 2022;22(1):1234.

This systematic review investigated the effect of disasters on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries. The authors found that NCDs are a significant burden for populations affected by disasters, with diabetes being the most commonly studied but relatively little research on chronic respiratory diseases and cancer. Among the commonly reported barriers to healthcare access for people with NCDs were low levels of education, financial difficulties, displacement, illiteracy, lack of access to medications, affordability of treatment and monitoring devices and lack of a de-centralized healthcare infrastructure. This highlights the need for close attention to be paid to vulnerable populations, such as women and refugees, and for research into the best ways to help people with NCDs during humanitarian emergencies in resource poor settings. (Full summary available in our Resilient Health Systems, Managing Mental Injuries, Managing Physical Injuries and the Health of Refugees and Asylum Seekers collections.)

Health system governance in settings with conflict-affected populations. Citation: Lokot M, et al. Health system governance in settings with conflict-affected populations: a systematic review. Health Policy and Planning. 2022;37(5):655-74.

Information about how to ensure that health system governance is effective may help those involved in health care in conflict-affected settings. However, even though this review included more than 30 research studies, it found only limited evidence to help with this and the authors called for researchers and donors to support the production of evidence on how to strengthen health system governance in conflict-affected settings. In relation to barriers to health system governance, the review found that poor coordination, mistrust between stakeholders, lack of financial support, problems with resource allocation and dominance of donor influence were the most commonly described. While the most commonly described facilitators were collaboration between stakeholders, use of bottom-up and community-based governance structures, inclusive policies and longer-term vision. (Full summary available in our Resilient Health Systems collection.)

We hope that this bulletin, the collections we link to in the above, and all our resources (EvidenceAid.org) are helpful. We would be pleased to hear from you with suggestions for how we can improve what we do. We will be sending out our monthly Evidence Aid newsletter in the next few weeks, but if you would like to stop receiving our bulletins or newsletters, please contact info@evidenceaid.org.