Psychiatric consultation in a Vietnamese refugee camp

Abstract

The authors provided psychiatric consultation to medical personnel in charge of a Vietnamese refugee camp in California. Although the emergency measures that supplied clothing, food, shelter, and medical care to nearly 60,000 refugees were immensely successful, consultation was requested to assist with selected mental health problems. The recommendations of the consulting team were related to the stage of camp development: early recommendations concerned easing adaptation to the camp setting; later efforts included creating a psychiatric crisis clinic and carrying out a mental health survey on a random sample of refugees. The results of this survey helped camp directors to understand how refugees responded to the camp experience.