title: Psychiatric emergency "surge capacity" following acts of terrorism and mass violence with high media impact: what is required?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Adequate preparedness for acts of terrorism and mass violence requires a thorough understanding of the postdisaster mental health needs of all exposed groups, including those watching such events from a distance. This study examined emergency psychiatric treatment-seeking patterns following media exposure to four national terrorist or mass casualty events.
  
  
  METHODS
  An event was selected for study if (a) it precipitated local front-page headlines for >5 consecutive days and (b) emergency service psychiatrists identified it as specifically precipitating help-seeking in the study hospital. Four events qualified: the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), the Columbine High School (1999) and Wedgewood Baptist Church (1999) shootings and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Time-series analyses were used to correct for autocorrelation in visit patterns during the postdisaster week, and equivalent time periods from years before and after each event were used as control years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, disaster week census did not differ significantly from predisaster weeks, although 3-day nonsignificant decreases in visit rate were observed following each disaster. Treatment-seeking for anxiety-related issues showed a nonsignificant increase following each disaster, which became significant in the "all disaster" model (t=5.17; P=.006). Intensity of media coverage did not impact rate of help-seeking in any analysis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although these sentinel US disasters varied in scope, method, geographic proximity to the study site, perpetrator characteristics, public response, sequelae and degree of media coverage, the extent to which they impacted emergency department treatment-seeking was minimal. Geographically distant mass violence and disaster events of the type and scope studied here may require only minimal mental health "surge capacity" in the days following the event.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, University of North Texas Health Sciences Center, Fort Worth, TX 76107, USA. claassen@unthsc.edu
authors: Cindy
authors: C
authors: Claassen
authors: T Michael
authors: TM
authors: Kashner
authors: Tetyana K
authors: TK
authors: Kashner
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Xuan
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authors: GL
authors: Larkin