Psychosocial and coping responses within the community health care setting towards a national outbreak of an infectious disease.

Objective: The psychological and coping responses of the noninfected community towards infectious disease outbreaks are relatively understudied. This cross-sectional study sought to determine the prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-related psychiatric and posttraumatic morbidities and associated coping styles within the general population visiting community health care services.

Methods: It was conducted on individuals attending community polyclinics in Singapore within the first week of July 2003, 16 weeks after the first national outbreak of SARS.