Assessing How Violent Threats from Students Toward Schools Are Affected Before and After a School Shooting

摘要

The objective of this study was to examine whether the number of children presenting for emergency psychiatric evaluations for making threats of mass school violence increases in the wake of a school shooting that receives heavy media attention. The records reviewed were for all children who presented to our hospital's pediatric behavioral health emergency service in the 6 weeks before and after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, that occurred on February 14, 2018. The inclusion criterion was threat of mass casualty school violence recorded in the encounter history of present illness. The proportion of patients reporting school violence was higher after the Parkland shooting than before (P =.0164). The mean number of admission days was longer for patients presenting after the Parkland shooting rather than before (P =.0164), and for those with documented gun access rather than un- documented (P =.0128). Our findings suggest that school violence threats increase in the weeks after a school shooting in which there was heavy media attention.