{"title":"The impact of media on surge capacity in emergency departments: a study on rabies vaccination uptake.","authors":"Suleyman Alpar, Figen Unal Colak, Bulent Kaya, Sarper Yilmaz","doi":"10.1186/s12873-025-01270-4","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>This study aims to explore the influence of media coverage on rabies vaccination practices and emergency department (ED) visits in Turkey, a country characterized by a substantial volume of patient admissions to EDs. Additionally, the study examines the impact of media-driven public concern on ED surge capacity, highlighting the challenges emergency physicians face in managing sudden patient influxes.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This retrospective, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted at a single center. To assess the influence of media on vaccination practices in EDs and its effect on ED surge capacity, the Causal Impact package and interrupted time-series analysis using autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modeling were employed.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>A total of 27,293 rabies vaccinations were administered at the study center within one year, with distribution as follows: 37.3% for the first dose, 33.4% for the second dose, and 29.2% for the third dose. Following rabies-related news, there was an average increase in the daily number of administered doses. The applied model indicated variances of 41.8%, 39.4%, and 38.5% for the respective doses, corresponding to daily increases of 7.73, 10.25, and 9.07 vaccinations. In the absence of rabies news, the expected daily doses would have been approximately 29 ± 1.7, 27 ± 1.4, and 24 ± 1.4, respectively. Rabies-related news resulted in absolute effects of 11 ± 1.7, 9 ± 1.4, and 9 ± 1.4 vaccinations and relative effects of 38 ± 8%, 35 ± 7.3%, and 38 ± 8.5% for the first, second, and third doses, respectively.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The presence of a rabies-related news story, coupled with an increase in rabies-related Google searches, was associated with a significant rise in rabies vaccinations administered in EDs. Media coverage of attention-captivating events can contribute to increased ED visits. Media plays a significant role in influencing ED utilization.</p><p><strong>Clinical trial number: </strong>Not applicable.</p>","PeriodicalId":9002,"journal":{"name":"BMC Emergency Medicine","volume":"25 1","pages":"102"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"BMC Emergency Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12873-025-01270-4","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EMERGENCY MEDICINE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objective: This study aims to explore the influence of media coverage on rabies vaccination practices and emergency department (ED) visits in Turkey, a country characterized by a substantial volume of patient admissions to EDs. Additionally, the study examines the impact of media-driven public concern on ED surge capacity, highlighting the challenges emergency physicians face in managing sudden patient influxes.
Methods: This retrospective, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted at a single center. To assess the influence of media on vaccination practices in EDs and its effect on ED surge capacity, the Causal Impact package and interrupted time-series analysis using autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modeling were employed.
Results: A total of 27,293 rabies vaccinations were administered at the study center within one year, with distribution as follows: 37.3% for the first dose, 33.4% for the second dose, and 29.2% for the third dose. Following rabies-related news, there was an average increase in the daily number of administered doses. The applied model indicated variances of 41.8%, 39.4%, and 38.5% for the respective doses, corresponding to daily increases of 7.73, 10.25, and 9.07 vaccinations. In the absence of rabies news, the expected daily doses would have been approximately 29 ± 1.7, 27 ± 1.4, and 24 ± 1.4, respectively. Rabies-related news resulted in absolute effects of 11 ± 1.7, 9 ± 1.4, and 9 ± 1.4 vaccinations and relative effects of 38 ± 8%, 35 ± 7.3%, and 38 ± 8.5% for the first, second, and third doses, respectively.
Conclusion: The presence of a rabies-related news story, coupled with an increase in rabies-related Google searches, was associated with a significant rise in rabies vaccinations administered in EDs. Media coverage of attention-captivating events can contribute to increased ED visits. Media plays a significant role in influencing ED utilization.
期刊介绍：
BMC Emergency Medicine is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all urgent and emergency aspects of medicine, in both practice and basic research. In addition, the journal covers aspects of disaster medicine and medicine in special locations, such as conflict areas and military medicine, together with articles concerning healthcare services in the emergency departments.
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