Suggestions for Roles and Qualifications of Disaster Mental Health Workforce Using a Delphi Process

This study aimed to derive expert consensus regarding roles and responsibilities of disaster mental health personnel using a Delphi process. The Delphi panel was composed of twenty multidisciplinary experts from the field of psychology, nursing, social welfare, and psychiatry. Based on literature review, focus group interviews, and a public forum, 20 categories and 69 subdivisions of roles and responsibilities of disaster mental health workforce were developed. The Dephi panel assessed relevance of the content and suggested qualified mental health personnel for each role and responsibility. The result indicated that expert consensus was derived for all 20 categories and 69 subdivisions, with the consensus mean of 8 or above on a scale of 1 to 10. On the other hand, there was a slight difference in expert consensus regarding qualifications of personnel to perform each role and responsibility. These results were based on the viewpoints of experts, and thus its clinical applications and practical utility in the disaster mental health field were discussed.