ArticleBMJ open2020
Public responses to the Salisbury Novichok incident: a cross-sectional survey of anxiety, anger, uncertainty, perceived risk and avoidance behaviour in the local community.
Article in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Health Scares: Tracing Their Nature, Growth and Spread.Clinical psychology in Europe · 2023Article
- Anxious and Angry: Early Emotional Adaptation of Medical Students in a Situational Crisis on the Example of the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Holding a stigmatizing attitude at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak: A cross-sectional survey.British journal of health psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesMalicious incidents involving chemical agents sometimes trigger high public concern. We aimed to (1) identify levels of emotion, perceived risk and behaviour change with regard to visiting Salisbury, 1 month after three people were poisoned with a nerve agent; and (2) test whether factors including receipt of information, beliefs about personal exposure and trust in government were associated with these outcomes.
designA cross-sectional telephone survey of a random sample of Salisbury residents.
settingConducted between 5 and 13 April 2018.
participants500 residents aged 18 or over. OUTCOME MEASURES: Self-reported anxiety, anger, uncertainty, perceived risk to self and avoidance of Salisbury.
resultsAny degree of anxiety, anger and uncertainty was reported by 40.6%, 29.8% and 30.6% of participants, respectively. For the majority, the level of emotion reported was mild. Only 7.0% met the criteria for high anxiety and 5.2% reported feeling any risk to their health, whereas 18.6% reported avoiding Salisbury. Factors associated with avoidance of Salisbury included being female, unable to rule out exposure for oneself or of loved ones, believing the incident was targeted against the general public, and lower trust in the government and responding agencies. Hearing a lot or a little about the recovery support (eg, financial packages), as opposed to nothing at all, and being satisfied with this information were associated with reduced avoidance.
conclusionsAlthough the March 2018 Salisbury incident had a relatively modest impact on emotion and risk perception in the community, the number who reported avoiding the city was notable. In this, and in future incidents, assuring people that contamination resulted from a targeted, rather than indiscriminate, incident; demonstrating that contamination is contained within specific areas; improving communication about any financial support; and promoting trust in responding agencies should help provide additional reassurance to the community.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.