Proactive psychosocial follow-up of youth exposed to a terrorist attack: longitudinal study linking interviews and register-based data

Abstract

Background: Knowledge on efficient approaches to the provision of post-disaster psychosocial care is urgently needed. To prevent unmet healthcare needs, proactive follow-up by municipal contact persons was recommended for survivors of the Utøya youth camp attack in Norway. Aims: To examine characteristics of the survivors by whether or not they had a contact person in the early (0–5 months), intermediary (5–15 months) and long-term (20–32 months) aftermath of the attack, and to describe the survivors’ experiences with the contact person. Method: We analysed data from three waves of interviews with survivors conducted 4–5, 14–15 and 30–32 months after the attack, as well as register-based data on the use of mental health services from 3 years before until 3 years after the attack. Results: Survivors with a contact person early post-attack were less likely to receive care from mental health services concurrently or to have anxiety/depression symptoms subsequently compared with survivors