Threats of school violence increase after school shootings with heavy media attention
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Threats of school violence appeared to increase in the weeks following a school shooting in which there was significant media attention, according to study results published in Psychiatric Annals.
“There are limited available studies that define the characteristics and risk factors that separate children who are admitted to a hospital and those who are cleared to go home following a psychiatric evaluation after threats of school violence,” Jessica Haddad, MD, psychiatry resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Healio Psychiatry. “Although a 2001 study examined whether the number of threats of school violence increased following intense media coverage of the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, our study explores the threats surrounding the Parkland, Florida, shooting in 2018, which occurred in the digital era and thus had arguably more potential for media influence.”
In the current study, the researchers aimed to determine whether a school shooting that received heavy media attention was linked to the number of children who presented for emergency psychiatric evaluations for making threats of mass school violence following that shooting. They reviewed records for all children who presented to a pediatric behavioral health emergency service at a single hospital in the 6 weeks before and after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Threat of mass casualty school violence recorded during the encounter history of present illness served as the inclusion criterion.
Results showed a higher proportion of patients reporting school violence following the Parkland shooting vs. before it (P = .0164). Patients who presented after the shooting rather than before (P = .0164) had longer mean number of admission days, which was also longer for those with documented gun access vs. undocumented (P = .0128).
“Research on this topic is challenging as controlled studies are not possible, so we hope that our study and other related works can eventually be used to inform a comprehensive assessment to help predict the likelihood of a patient acting upon their threats so that we can more effectively prevent these horrific acts of violence,” Haddad said.