Objective  To assess the current status and problems of the professional human resources of psychological emergency intervention against public emergencies in Shanghai, and provide scientific basis for the capacity building of psychological emergency intervention teams in this city.

  Methods  All psychological emergency intervention team members and psychological emergency managers at both the municipal and district levels in Shanghai mental health service system were investigated with questionnaire.

  Results  Totally there were currently 272 professional members in psychological emergency intervention team in Shanghai, including 50 members in municipal -level teams (among 30 members worked also in in district-level teams) and 252 members in district-level teams. The gender ratio of the overall team was 1∶1.8; part-time personnel accounted for 84.9%. Most professional team members were 35-44 years old (53.7%)with bachelor degree or above (96.3%); 40.4% members majored psychiatry and 63.6% had intermediate professional title; 59.9% members in district -level teams engaged in psychological emergency intervention for less than 5 years. The proportion of members having experience in online psychological intervention and/or psychological intervention against four types of public emergencies in the municipal -level teams was higher than that in district -level teams. From 2017 to 2020, the times of psychological emergency intervention training organized by both the municipal and/or district-level teams were less than 4 times, and number of actual combat drills organized by municipal and/or district-level teams was 1 and 0.4 times in each year, respectively. The members in municipal -level teams and in district -level teams participated in training 2 times and 0.5 times on average each year, respectively.

  Conclusions  The psychological emergency intervention team in Shanghai has formed a certain scale and reasonable structure, but there are still shortage, such as the inability of professional human resources to meet the needs of the public, the limited work experience of members in district -level teams, and lack of overall team training and drills. Therefore, the comprehensive policies should be implemented in terms of improving the talents incentive and guarantee system, strengthening the unified scheduling management and capacity building of the teams, and increasing the investment of special funds, so as to fully improve the city's psychological emergency management capabilities for public emergencies.