Support Needs for Canadian Health Providers Responding to Disaster: New Insights from a Grounded Theory Approach

This study was approved by an academic Research Ethics Board. Participants were made aware that their information would remain confidential, and were required to sign a form of informed consent prior to the start of the interview. The participants were asked questions, according to a semi-structured interview guide, regarding their general experiences in Haiti. In addition, responders were asked to answer questions regarding specific elements of the support systems offered to them before, during, and after deployment. Finally, they were asked to reflect on the effectiveness of the existing systems of support, and identify any perceived gaps. In accordance with Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) approach to grounded theory, the central phenomenon of this study was identified as the “need for supports for Canadian health and social service providers responding to the disaster in Haiti”.4,7 The following categories were used to structure the analysis and results of this grounded theory study: Contextual and Intervening Conditions: a description of the societal, organizational andpersonal contexts and conditions that were present during the response Causal Conditions: reasons driving for the need for supports; Strategies: systems or interventions implemented that influenced the responder’s ability to respond with resiliency to the context and conditions; and Consequences: the “outcomes from using the Strategies in relation to ...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Source Type: research