Towards a Rapid Triage Method Addressing the Potential for PTSD Conditions following Mass Violence Events

Numbers from past mass violence events, such as terrorist attacks or mass shootings, show that a significant fraction develop a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) condition. For effective treatment, early identification is important. A method for rapid screening of the potential for PSTD development for individuals exposed in the event, allows for an appropriate treatment at an early stage. Such treatment could effectively mitigate consequences and reduce the number of individuals developing PTSD. There already exist rapid triage methods for trauma prioritization following mass violence events, but neither of these specifically include the risk of PSTD development. A starting point towards a rapid triage method having a PTSD focus, is to consider risk influencing factors, as key elements of the method. Relevant peritraumatic factors are considered, such as: incident type (I), exposure level (E), trauma duration (D), and perceived threat level (T). Each of these peritraumatic risk factors can be given a role in assessment of possible PTSD development. A way to assess the factors is to assign a numerical value for each of them, considering the trauma burden for prioritizing the most affected for follow-up. An aggregated score can be established based on the IEDT assessments, which then reflects the potential for developing PTSD conditions. A practical example on how such a scoring system could be designed is given in the paper.

Keywords: Rapid triage method, Mass violence events, Posttraumatic stress disorder, Risk factors, Risk mitigation.