Understanding the psychological impacts of responding to a terrorist incident.

Background: Responding to a mass casualty event can cause significant distress, even for highly trained medical and emergency services personnel.

Objective: The purpose of the study was to understand more about first responders' perspectives about their participation in major incident responses, specifically how and which individual and system factors contributed to their preparedness or may have enabled or hindered their response. The aim of the work was to improve preparedness and response for future incidents.

The role of emergency preparedness exercises in the response to a mass casualty terrorist incident: A mixed methods study.

Simulation exercises are an important part of emergency preparedness activities for the healthcare community but evidence of their impact on the response to real major incidents is limited. This project studied the impact of health emergency preparedness exercises (HEPEs) on the response to a mass casualty terrorist incident. The mixed methods study design was adopted comprising an on-line survey and follow up individual interviews.

UK healthcare staff experiences and perceptions of a mass casualty terrorist incident response: a mixed-methods study.

Introduction: System learning from major incidents is a crucial element of improving preparedness for response to any future incidents. Sharing good practice and limitations stimulates further actions to improve preparedness and prevents duplicating mistakes.

Methods: This convergent parallel mixed methods study comprises data from responses to an online survey and individual interviews with healthcare staff who took part in the responses to three terrorist incidents in the UK in 2017 (Westminster Bridge attack, Manchester Arena Bombing and London Bridge attack) to understand limitations in the response and share good practices.

Public perceptions of emergency decontamination: Effects of intervention type and responder management strategy during a focus group study.

In the event of an incident involving the release of a hazardous chemical, first responders may decide to initiate emergency decontamination in order to remove any contaminant from affected casualties. Recent initiatives such as the UK Home Office-led Initial Operational Response Programme have introduced new evidence-based decontamination protocols that reduce the time taken to initiate the decontamination process, including an increased emphasis on rapidly removing contaminated clothing (disrobe), and the use of improvised dry decontamination methods. The current study used a series of focus groups to examine public perceptions of different decontamination interventions and responder management strategies.