Follow up of Tsunami Victims by General Practitioners

The purpose of the project was to investigate how the general practitioners' follow-up of the victims after the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia in 2004 worked.

The project was part of a larger research program on the consequences of the tsunami disaster commissioned by the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS) from the Directorate of Health and Social Affairs. The survey was based on a questionnaire to all general practitioners who had people who had been present in the disaster area on their patient lists. In addition, data from a questionnaire to homecomings from the disaster area were also included.

In this disaster, the follow-up of the victims was for the first time largely based on using the ordinary health service by having the general practitioners commissioned to contact the affected people on their patient lists. The survey showed that only half of the doctors received the overview of which people they should contact, and that over 40 percent of those who received the overviews still did not contact the relevant people. Whether the doctor made contact or not seems to be related to how they related to the task, those who were positive made more contact. However, attitudes to the task did not seem to affect the assistance they gave patients when contact was established. It also seems that most of those who needed help got it, but it was to some extent due to the fact that those who needed it also themselves made contact with the doctors. At the same time, the survey suggests that those who were contacted by the doctor were more satisfied with the assistance than those who had to establish contact themselves.