The willingness of U.S. Emergency Medical Technicians to respond to terrorist incidents.
A nationally representative sample of basic and paramedic emergency medical service providers in the United States was surveyed to assess their willingness to respond to terrorist incidents. EMT's were appreciably (9-13%) less willing than able to respond to such potential terrorist-related incidents as smallpox outbreaks, chemical attacks, or radioactive dirty bombs (p<0.0001). EMTs who had received terrorism-related continuing medical education within the previous 2 years were twice as likely (OR=1.9, 95% CI 1.9, 2.0) to be willing to respond to a potential smallpox dissemination incident as those who indicated that they had not received such training. Timely and appropriate training, attention to interpersonal concerns, and instilling a sense of duty may increase first medical provider response rates.
Dimaggio
Charles
C
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY 10032, USA. cjd11@columbia.edu
Markenson
David
D
T Loo
George
G
Redlener
Irwin
I
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004634:Emergency Medical Technicians / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D023481:Terrorism / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States