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Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels
The 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone was the worst in history with over 28 000 cases and 11 000 deaths. Here we examine the psychosocial consequences of the epidemic. Ebola is a traumatic illness both in terms of symptom severity and mortality rates. Those affected are li...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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World Health Organization
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773931/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26966332 http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.15.158543 |
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author | Van Bortel, Tine Basnayake, Anoma Wurie, Fatou Jambai, Musu Koroma, Alimamy Sultan Muana, Andrew T Hann, Katrina Eaton, Julian Martin, Steven Nellums, Laura B |
author_facet | Van Bortel, Tine Basnayake, Anoma Wurie, Fatou Jambai, Musu Koroma, Alimamy Sultan Muana, Andrew T Hann, Katrina Eaton, Julian Martin, Steven Nellums, Laura B |
author_sort | Van Bortel, Tine |
collection | PubMed |
description | The 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone was the worst in history with over 28 000 cases and 11 000 deaths. Here we examine the psychosocial consequences of the epidemic. Ebola is a traumatic illness both in terms of symptom severity and mortality rates. Those affected are likely to experience psychological effects due to the traumatic course of the infection, fear of death and experience of witnessing others dying. Survivors can also experience psychosocial consequences due to feelings of shame or guilt (e.g. from transmitting infection to others) and stigmatization or blame from their communities. At the community level, a cyclical pattern of fear occurs, with a loss of trust in health services and stigma, resulting in disruptions of community interactions and community break down. Health systems in affected countries were severely disrupted and overstretched by the outbreak and their capacities were significantly reduced as almost 900 health-care workers were infected with Ebola and more than 500 died. The outbreak resulted in an increased need for health services, reduced quality of life and economic productivity and social system break down. It is essential that the global response to the outbreak considers both acute and long-term psychosocial needs of individuals and communities. Response efforts should involve communities to address psychosocial need, to rebuild health systems and trust and to limit stigma. The severity of this epidemic and its long-lasting repercussions should spur investment in and development of health systems. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4773931 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | World Health Organization |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-47739312016-03-10 Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels Van Bortel, Tine Basnayake, Anoma Wurie, Fatou Jambai, Musu Koroma, Alimamy Sultan Muana, Andrew T Hann, Katrina Eaton, Julian Martin, Steven Nellums, Laura B Bull World Health Organ Policy & Practice The 2013–2016 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone was the worst in history with over 28 000 cases and 11 000 deaths. Here we examine the psychosocial consequences of the epidemic. Ebola is a traumatic illness both in terms of symptom severity and mortality rates. Those affected are likely to experience psychological effects due to the traumatic course of the infection, fear of death and experience of witnessing others dying. Survivors can also experience psychosocial consequences due to feelings of shame or guilt (e.g. from transmitting infection to others) and stigmatization or blame from their communities. At the community level, a cyclical pattern of fear occurs, with a loss of trust in health services and stigma, resulting in disruptions of community interactions and community break down. Health systems in affected countries were severely disrupted and overstretched by the outbreak and their capacities were significantly reduced as almost 900 health-care workers were infected with Ebola and more than 500 died. The outbreak resulted in an increased need for health services, reduced quality of life and economic productivity and social system break down. It is essential that the global response to the outbreak considers both acute and long-term psychosocial needs of individuals and communities. Response efforts should involve communities to address psychosocial need, to rebuild health systems and trust and to limit stigma. The severity of this epidemic and its long-lasting repercussions should spur investment in and development of health systems. World Health Organization 2016-03-01 2016-01-21 /pmc/articles/PMC4773931/ /pubmed/26966332 http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.15.158543 Text en (c) 2016 The authors; licensee World Health Organization. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization or products. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL. |
spellingShingle | Policy & Practice Van Bortel, Tine Basnayake, Anoma Wurie, Fatou Jambai, Musu Koroma, Alimamy Sultan Muana, Andrew T Hann, Katrina Eaton, Julian Martin, Steven Nellums, Laura B Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels |
title | Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels |
title_full | Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels |
title_fullStr | Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels |
title_full_unstemmed | Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels |
title_short | Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels |
title_sort | psychosocial effects of an ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels |
topic | Policy & Practice |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773931/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26966332 http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.15.158543 |
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