PESHAWAR, June 24: An alarmingly high number of earthquake survivors in the NWFP suffer from mental disorder, necessitating providing basic training to primary health workers.

This was the consensus among psychiatrics attending a two-day workshop organised by the International Medical Corps here on Saturday.

Highlighting the survivors’ traumatic experiences, they said that most of them had lost their relatives, which made them more vulnerable to psychiatric disorders.

They said that earthquake survivors mostly suffered from anxiety and depression for which untrained people could offer little or no help.

They said that 50 per cent of physicians working in quake zone had no experience in handling psychiatric problems, adding that it was necessary to train them. Health centres in the five quake-hit districts of the province had recorded 50 per cent psychiatric patients.

Lack of trained manpower was adversely affecting the afflicted people, they added.

One of IMC’s representatives said that they had adopted a three-pronged strategy to cope with the mental health problems in the quake zone.

“We are mobilising community people so they could motivate and sensitise the people on mental health problems. We are also imparting training to lady health visitors (LHVs) so they could identify the people with strange behaviours and refer them to the psychiatrist for further management”, he said.

The people are still faced with nightmarish situation due to the flashback affects of the tragedy, he said.