Abstract
Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine college students’ perception, attitude, and knowledge of an active shooter incident in order to identify and aid their future campus public health emergency preparedness training. Methods: It is a cross-sectional study, and a total of 455 undergraduate and graduate students were recruited from a variety of majors enrolled in 19 randomly selected classes. A 22-question semistructured survey questionnaire was distributed and completed by the participants. Data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Results: Approximately, 82% of the participants indicated that they would be panicked or terrified during a campus shooting and more than half of the participants thought that an active shooter incident could happen to any campus and perceived that their current institution was prepared for it. Participants presented moderate knowledge of an active shooter preparedness. Less than 32% of the participants had prior gun violence preparedness training, and more than 83% of them emphasized the importance of routine emergency preparedness training. There was no clear trend indicating that a higher student classification led to a better preparedness. Conclusions: Attention should largely be given to developing consistent, tailored, and evidence-based institutional emergency training programs to facilitate a campus-wide readiness.
Highlights
Between 2000 and 2018, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported 277 FBI-designated active shooter incidents in the US, which led to 844 deaths and 1,546 injuries [1]
Gun Violence Archive defined a mass shooting as only the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter” [5] while “media outlets, academic researchers, and law enforcement agencies frequently use different definitions when discussing mass shootings, which can complicate our understanding of mass shooting trends and their relationship to gun policy” [6]
The current study aims to learn and assess perception, attitude, and knowledge of a campus shooting among college students from different student classifications in order to identify and aid their future public health emergency preparedness training on campus
Summary
Between 2000 and 2018, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported 277 FBI-designated active shooter incidents in the US, which led to 844 deaths and 1,546 injuries [1]. In 2020, as of July 6th, Gun Violence Archive recorded a total number of 21,283 gun violence related deaths including deaths involved in 282 mass shootings [4]. It indicated a growing trend of mass shootings in the US with 269 verified incidents in 2014 and 418 incidents in 2019, and a considerable number of mass shootings happened at schools and on college campuses [4].
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