Impact of a Celebrity Death on Children's Injury-related Emergency Room Visits

Objectives: To determine whether a sharp increase in Emergency Room (ER) visits at the Montreal Children's Hospital (MCH) during the week following the death of Natasha Richardson from a skiing-related head injury was a) statistically significant and b) related to media coverage of the event. We postulated that there would be less coverage in the French media and in centres west of Quebec. Methods: We compared the number of visits to the MCH ER for 10 weeks beginning March 5 and recorded the number for head-related injuries. These data were also compared with averages for the MCH for the same weeks in the previous 16 years; with visit figures from Hopital Ste-Justine (HSJ); and with those from 3 other pediatric hospitals in provinces west of Quebec for the same period. Results: We found a 60% increase in injury visits to the MCH ER compared to the baseline week (p<0.001) and a 66% difference when compared with the 16-year average. HSJ also recorded a sharp increase during the study week but the rise did not persist. Smaller increases were recorded in the more western children's hospitals. At the MCH nearly half of the visits were for head injuries, but there was no change in the number judged to be severe. Conclusions: These data suggest that the media coverage of this celebrity death may have generated anxiety among parents, prompting those who might not otherwise have sought medical care to bring their children to the ER.