Improving the mental health system for trauma victims in France

Wissam El-Hage (1) , Philippe Birmes (2) , Louis Jehel (3) , Florian Ferreri (4) , Michel Benoit (5) , Pierre Vidailhet (6) , Nathalie Prieto , Irène François , Thierry Baubet (7) , Guillaume Vaiva (8)

1 iBrain - Inserm U1253 - UNIV Tours - Imagerie et cerveau
2 LST - Laboratoire du Stress Traumatique - EA 4560
3 CHU de la Martinique [Fort de France]
4 Service de Psychiatrie adultes [CHU Saint-Antoine]
5 IRPHE - Institut de Recherche sur les Phénomènes Hors Equilibre
6 Fondation FondaMental [Créteil]
7 CESP - Centre de recherche en épidémiologie et santé des populations
8 SCALab - Laboratoire Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives - UMR 9193

France has a rich history of exposure to large-scale traumas such as wars, disasters and terrorist attacks, and psychiatric teams specialized in emergency interventions for mass trauma have been created across the territory. However, no public resources are dedicated for long-term interventions or for individual trauma cases. This letter describes how a government supported model of care has been created and implemented in 2019. A national centre for resources and resilience (CN2R) and 10 regional ambulatory services specializing in psychotraumatology were created with the aim of improving public mental health-care delivery while providing a comprehensive suite of services for trauma victims from the most immediate to longer-term considerations. ARTICLE HISTORY

Keywords: Europe; treatment; France; trauma; PTSD; Psychotraumatology; therapy

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Human health and pathology; Psychiatrics and mental health

Wissam El-Hage, Philippe Birmes, Louis Jehel, Florian Ferreri, Michel Benoit, et al.. Improving the mental health system for trauma victims in France. European Journal of Psychotraumatology , 2019, 10 (1), pp.1617610. ⟨10.1080/20008198.2019.1617610⟩. ⟨hal-02524116⟩