Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Victims and Responders to the Boston Marathon Bombings

Abstract

The response to the Boston Marathon bombings demonstrated the value of networks and collaborative practices in many ways. Although three people died at the scene, all of the remaining injured survived due to the extraordinary care provided by primary care providers, hospitals, ambulance services, other first responders, and citizens. This was also a disaster in which effective mental health care was provided from the start by networks of local, state, and federal organizations and continued for the victims, responders, and the community. It demonstrated the value of integrated behavioral responses as a critical component of all disaster and terrorist attack planning and services. This case study highlights the roles of the agencies involved in the initial response to the attack. Mental Health Needs After DisastersPsychological trauma is the overwhelming demand placed upon the physiological system that results in profound, felt sense of loss of control, vulnerability, and immobilization. Mass casualty events inflict both physical and psychological damage. Managing acute stress should be a leading component of medical care and not be less important than physical injuries [1,2]. A disaster or terrorist attack affects one's cognitive, emotional, social/behavioral, physiological, and spiritual domains. Injured survivors, survivors with high exposure to the incident, bereaved family and friends, people who have lost Downloaded by [University of Saskatchewan Library] at 22:16 12 June 2016

Considering Risks to Researchers and Staff in Low-Resource Settings during Public Health Crises: A Proposed Conceptual Model

“…Psychological distress and fears among first responders to terrorism, radio nuclear disasters, earthquakes, and hurricanes have been well documented, albeit in higher resource settings [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. Mitigating factors, also explored in high-resource settings, include the facilitation of communication channels and peer and mentor support networks, similar to mechanisms described for epidemic categories of research team risk.…”

Three case studies of community behavioral health support from the US Department of Veterans Affairs after disasters

“…The current COVID-19 pandemic, while still underway, has already demonstrated the need for psychological interventions to manage the isolation, stress, and trauma stemming from the ongoing disaster [1][2][3][4][5]. While the scale of the event is unprecedented, interest in understanding the psychological consequences of disasters is not unique to the pandemic [6][7][8][9][10]. Generally, studies exploring the impacts of disasters on behavioral health have found increases in psychological distress in the short term, with the potential for some individuals to experience long-term psychiatric disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety [6][7][8][9][10].…”

“…In the United States, federal entities strive to create resources and guidance on implementing behavioral health services after disaster, however, interventions are generally managed and delivered by state, territory, and local agencies [14,18,19]. Often, after federally declared disasters, the US Federal Government additionally provides funding through the Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program (CCP) to community behavioral health programs [8,13,20]. Yet the structure and content of interventions are left to the discretion of the implementing agency.…”

An interpretative phenomenological analysis of 2013 Boston Marathoners’ experience of running a subsequent Boston Marathon

“…Following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, scholars focused their research on hospital response and preparedness in the greater Boston area (Nadworny, Davis, Miers, Howrigan, Broderick, Boyd, & Dunster, 2014;Oser, Shah, & Gitlin, 2015;Tobert, von Keudell, & Rodriguez, 2015), the mental health needs of the bombings' first responders (Beinecke, 2014), how the media framed the marathon runners following the attack (Oliver, 2014), and runners' coping strategies and resilience in the wake of the bombings (Timm et al, 2017). There is limited scholarly research on Emotional Processing Theory as it relates to the experiences of individuals directly involved in a terror attack while attending or competing in an athletic event.…”