Posttraumatic Stress in the Aftermath of Mass Shootings

Abstract

Recent mass shooting incidents in the USA include the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech and the 2012 shootings at the Aurora, Colorado movie theatre and Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Although these events generated much national attention, surprisingly, little research has evaluated mental health impacts of mass shootings, and no efforts to our knowledge have been made to synthesize the empirical findings. In this chapter, we review the extant literature on posttraumatic stress in the aftermath mass shootings. We identified 35 peer-reviewed articles, comprised of 19 independent samples in the aftermath of 14 mass shooting incidents. The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in these studies ranged from 3 to 91 %. Several factors could underlie this wide variation, including differences in the assessment measures, criteria used to define cases, timing of assessment, and sample characteristics. Risk factors for more severe posttraumatic stress symptoms have been identified, including demographic and pre-incident characteristics (e.g., female gender, pre-incident psychological symptoms), event exposure (e.g., greater proximity to the attack, acquaintance with the deceased), and fewer psychosocial resources (e.g., emotion regulation difficulties, lower social support). Further research that draws on pre-incident and longitudinal data will yield important insights into the processes that exacerbate or sustain posttraumatic stress over time and provide important information for crisis preparedness and post-incident mental health interventions.