Acute anxiety cases in emergency department following the November 23, 2022 Düzce earthquake

Background and objectives: Human and material losses associated with earthquakes are traumatic enough to trigger serious symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. It is expected that after an earthquake, an increased number of patients with acute anxiety symptoms would present to the emergency department (ED) of a hospital. Therefore, this study determined the magnitude of the acute anxiety cases that reported to the ED of a tertiary care hospital within the 48-hour period following the earthquake that occurred in Düzce, Turkey, on November 23, 2022. Materials and Methods: Patients presenting to the emergency department over a 48-hour period following the earthquake starting from 04:08 on November 23, 2022, and one week before and after the earthquake were included in the study. Socio-demographic and clinical data were collected retrospectively from hospital records. The severity of anxiety symptoms was assessed with the Faces Anxiety Scale. Results: In the first 48 hours after the earthquake, a total of 224 patients applied to the ED with earthquake-related complaints. Of these patients, 59 (26.34%) presented with acute anxiety symptoms. A significantly (p <0.05) increased number of acute anxiety-related patients (8.4%) visited the ED following the earthquake compared to the 48-hour period one week before and after the earthquake (1.3% and 0.4%). Conclusion: The study has demonstrated that immediately after the earthquake, as expected, the ED of hospital encounters increased cases with anxiety symptoms along with an increase in trauma cases. Therefore, healthcare professionals should be able to recognize and manage not only trauma but also psychiatric symptoms in earthquake situations. July 2025; Vol. 19(2):001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.55010/imcjms.19.010 *Correspondence: Mustafa Boğan, Emergency Department, School of Medicine, Düzce University, Düzce, Turkey, Posta code: 81620. Email: [email protected]; © 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License(CC BY 4.0).