Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2025 Oct 20;19:e299. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2025.10218.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Preparation for mass casualty incidents (MCIs) requires knowledge of the number of victims to be treated on site and transferred to hospitals. The objective was to collect this information for MCIs with hospital admissions in Europe over the last 30 years.
METHOD: This was a scoping review of MCIs with hospital admissions in Europe between 1991 and 2023. The study was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines with PubMed, the Web of Science, Industrial and Transport Accident Reports, and two global databases on terrorism and disasters. Events with ten victims transferred to hospitals were included.
RESULTS: In total, 2,498 documents were identified, and 82 documents covering 62 MCIs were selected. In Europe, there was a median of 73 MCI: 9 victims died on site (12%), 48 were transferred to hospitals (66%), and 13 with serious casualties (17%). MCI is divided into 7 categories: explosion, ballistic, fire, road, ram raid, railway, and industrial accident.
CONCLUSIONS: By improving our knowledge of past MCIs and their casualty figures, we can now train more realistically and be better prepared to respond to future MCIs.
PMID:41111321 | DOI:10.1017/dmp.2025.10218
