Abstract
On the 29th of December 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Petrinja in the Croatian Sisak-Moslavina County experienced a strong earthquake, resulting in a severe disruption in mental health service delivery. Specialized care community mental health teams were introduced days within the event with the aim to bridge the gap in psychiatric care that was severely disturbed in the region affected by the earthquake. Through a case series of patients with SMI, we describe how care was quickly deployed and delivered after a natural disaster and during a pandemic resulting in their functional recovery. Community mental health teams have the potential to provide feasible, comprehensive, and accessible mental health services, and their continued implementation in the post-disaster period in Croatia could be beneficial for care management of people with severe mental illness.
Highlights
An earthquake of 6.4 moment magnitude (Mw) hit Petrinja in Croatian Sisak-Moslavina County on 29th of December 2020, which resulted in severe structural damage in the region and seven death causalities [1]
We believe introducing Community mental health teams (CMHT) as a standard post-disaster mental health intervention could have several benefits. They improve access to psychiatric services which is often disrupted in disaster situation, such as in our experience. It is well-known that low levels of accessibility of mental health services increase the inequality in the provision of adequate care for people with SMI [36]
The mental health services in general became less accessible during the pandemic in the majority of countries [33, 34]
Summary
An earthquake of 6.4 moment magnitude (Mw) hit Petrinja in Croatian Sisak-Moslavina County on 29th of December 2020, which resulted in severe structural damage in the region and seven death causalities [1]. CMHT can support people with mental illness in achieving their recovery goals in and around their community and provide appropriate specialized care in the event of a crisis to prevent unnecessary psychiatric-related hospitalization [31, 32]. The patient was already receiving mental health care for unspecified psychosis and complex PTSD since 2005 but was not able to visit a psychiatrist due to the lack of public transportation after the earthquake He shared the household with one of his parents, was unemployed, and received social allowances as his only source of income. Because of the high risk of further illness progression due to medication nonadherence and the lack of support system, all possibly resulting in deterioration of psychic and somatic health, the team indicated a further diagnostic evaluation and treatment, so the patient was transferred to Dr Ivan Barbot hospital. Upon achieving the remission of psychotic symptoms, she was displaced to the Special Hospital for Pulmonary Diseases and Tuberculosis where she continued treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis
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