Dynamic characteristics of social panic in epidemic emergency

SARS aroused certain social panic in China. To identify residents’ attitudes and coping behaviors to the epidemic situation, we conducted 3 round of surveys in which 2090 respondents from 6 cities involved during May and June in 2003. Reanalysis on the survey data for exploring dynamic characteristics of social panic indicated that 1) social panic sustained while epidemic subsided; 2) there seemed more panic in no/slight epidemic cities than heavy ones; and 3) respondents may be categorized into 3 coping types. Implicit memory of residents to accumulative diagnosed cases and deaths played important role to the social panic