Security interventions and perceived safety and threat following workplace terrorism: a three-wave longitudinal study of ministerial employees in Norway

Spending on counterterrorism interventions has increased markedly in recent decades despite limited evidence supporting their effectiveness. Effectiveness research is mostly based on statistical modelling of risk and risk reduction and tends to ignore the impact interventions have on the subjective consequences of terrorism in a population – e.g. increased fear and anxiety. Feeling fearful and unsafe is common after terrorism and has been shown to mediate negative health outcomes and reduce work functioning in violence-exposed workers. The primary aim of the present study was to explore if visible security measures and escape- and evacuation training are associated with perceived safety and threat in terror-exposed employees. Data from a three-wave longitudinal questionnaire-based observational study of ministerial employees conducted 10, 22 and 34 months after the terrorist attack on the government headquarters in Oslo, Norway in 2011 was combined with retrospective data on installed visible security measures and escape- and evacuation training in ministries for the same period. The main outcomes were employees’ perceived safety and threat at work, both scored on a 5-point Likert scale. Results were analyzed with multilevel mixed-effects ordered logistic regression. There was some evidence that more installed visible security measures were associated with higher employee perceived safety at work (.020 < p value < .061). The findings on the association between security measures and employee perceived threat were unclear, and there was no evidence that escape- and evacuation training was associated with employee perceived safety or threat. Contrary to what is oftentimes argued in the literature, our study suggests that the installation of visible security measures increases perceived safety in terror-exposed individuals and has no clear effect on perceived threat. Our findings may help close knowledge gaps in counterterrorism effectiveness research and aid decision-makers when discussing post-terrorism strategies and interventions.