Psychosocial support intervention principles of disaster personnels relationship, between empathy and leadership; the example of Turkish Red Crescent

Psychosocial support services are an inseparable and indispensable part of humanitarian aid activities carried out in disasters, and it is an important field for the disaster victims are able to overcome the negative process more easily in term of being not to wear out to psychologically. The formation of a perspective on psychosocial intervention principles may be important in terms of providing benefits to the effective management of the disaster. The aim of this study was to evaluate correlation between the subscales of the principles of psychosocial intervention and the motivation leadership and the empathy in disaster field workers. In the method; The sub-dimension of psychosocial intervention consisting of 7 questions of 5-likert type, motivation leadership sub-dimensions of 11 questions and empathy sub-dimensions of 13 questions were applied to volunteer Kızılay staff. The data obtained were evaluated with SPSS 15.0 statistically. Evaluations of data results were calculated in terms of mean±standard deviation value. While the psychosocial intervention principles score of the participants (4.38±0.53) was very good; The socionormative score value (3.48±0.77) is moderate and the emotional normative leadership sub-dimension score value (3.92±0.60) is at a good level; It was observed that the social skill score (4.22±0.62) was very good, the emotional reaction score (4.15±0.58) was good, and the mean value of cognitive empathy score (3.92±0.66) was at a good level. The percentage of the participants who knew all the principles of psychosocial support (15%) was low. It was observed that the status of receiving disaster preparedness training and the average values of psychosocial intervention principles increased (p<0.05). A highly statistically significant positive correlation was observed between psychosocial intervention principles and empathy subscales and leadership motivation subscales (p<0.001). As a result of this study, because of the positive correlation observed between psychosocial intervention principles and important variables such as empathy and leadership in personnel working in the disaster area, it was suggest that the knowledge of all psychosocial intervention principles and the training to be given to staff, might be an important contribution so as to perform more effective disaster management. Keywords: Disasters, Psychosocial Support Services, Empathy, Leadership