Abstract:
Introduction:
The Mozambican population has been recurrently affected by traumatic situations due to natural (cyclones, droughts, floods) or man-made (armed conflicts) catastrophes, which can lead to the development of mental disorders that, if not identified and treated, result in severe sequelae and cause chronicity.
Objectives:
To promote a reflection on the inclusion of emergency psychiatric topics in natural disasters and armed conflicts in the disciplines or modules of psychiatry in undergraduate medical school courses in Mozambique.
Methods:
Narrative literature review carried out between April and June 2021, focusing on the research of articles and documents published on the virtual platforms Research4life, PubMed, Hifa-PT, Google Scholar and that address the topics of natural disasters and armed conflicts and the teaching of these topics to medical students in the discipline of psychiatry.
Results:
The inclusion of psychiatric emergencies in situations of natural disasters and armed conflicts in the medical course can provide general practitioners who work in primary health care with knowledge and skills to recognize and act in psychiatric emergencies caused by natural disasters and armed conflicts, taking into account the fact that the country currently has few doctors specialized in psychiatry.
Final considerations:
The adequacy of the organization and assistance in psychiatric emergencies to the population exposed to natural disasters and armed conflicts contributes to the resilience and protection of the mental health of the communities. In this article, we reflect on the challenge of incorporating the topics of psychiatric emergencies caused by exposure to natural disasters and armed conflicts as a contribution to improving the skills of general practitioners in responding to the pressing mental health demands of this vulnerable population.
Keywords:
medical education; psychiatry teaching; psychiatric emergencies; natural disasters; armed conflicts