Citation

Huang XQ, Zhang Q, Yang XL, Luo L, He XB. Chinese Journal of Clinical Rehabilitation 2005; 9(16): 68-69.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

On June 10th 2003, a mass hysteria broke out among part of the students in a class of Grade 2 in a middle school, which located in the urban and rural boundary of Nankai district in Tianjin city. The mass hysteria was induced by a girl student's suicidal attempt by taking 7 or 8 diazepam tablets (5 mg per tablet). Fourteen classmates(6 boys and 8 girls) shared 1 to 3 diazepam tablets with her so as to relieve her for they failed in stopping her. On the way to the hospital, one girl of those having taken medicine initially presented the symptoms of dizziness, nausea, tachypnoea, asthenia and falling into a swoon, and similar symptoms were observed in other 11 students (3 boys and 8 girls) subsequently. Together with the girl who took the medicine firstly, the symptoms occurred in a total of 12 students. After treated by psychological suggestion, they recovered several hours later. One week after the occurrence of mass hysteria, students in the hysteria group(n = 12) and non-hysteria group(n = 61) of the same grade were assessed with the Eysenck personality questionnaire(EPQ) -youth's version, and the score of neuroticism was higher in the hysteria group(55.1 ± 9.3) than in the non-hysteria group(45.2 ± 10.1) (t = 2.93, P < 0.01). It was indicated that mass hysteria could occur in the crowd of children who often lived together if they were evoked by stronger stimulation of psychological factors. The manifestation of hysteria was the personality characteristic of higher score of neuroticism.

Language: zh

Keywords

adolescent; human; student; female; male; China; scoring system; suicide attempt; article; questionnaire; psychological aspect; statistical analysis; clinical article; neurosis; diazepam; hysteria; personality test; nausea; symptom; asthenia; dizziness; stimulation; tachypnea; suggestion