Original Articles Connecting With Others in the Midst of Stressful Upheaval on September 11, 2001 Patricia Liehr, Matthias R. Mehl, Linda C. Summers, and James W. Pennebaker This study was originally planned from September tenth through twelfth to assess concurrent use of three real-time data sources during a usual day. When the World Trade Center towers collapsed, the plan expanded to describe 24-hour blood pressure and heart rate, natural environment word use, television viewing/radio listening, and self-reported diary feelings for six undergraduate students in the midst of stressful upheaval. Heart rate, “we” word-use and television viewing/ radio listening increased over time. Higher negative and lower positive feelings/emotions oc- curred during morning hours on September 11. Students connected with others and shared good thoughts. Measurement with real-time data sources was informative. © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. O N SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, the World Trade Center Towers collapsed after being struck by two commercial jetliners; it was a day of stress- ful upheaval for Americans. This article will report the real-time day of undergraduate students who shared with the researchers and data collectors a common ground of making sense of senselessness and creating meaning in the midst of upheaval on this day. A rigorous methodological approach, which was used to assess the real-time experience of the day, included concurrent use of three mea- surement devices. Implications of the coexistence of upheaval and social connection are considered, as is the potential of the real-time measurement devices used in the study. BACKGROUND Real-time reports about September 11 that have appeared in the literature are anecdotal chronicles, documenting the meaning of the events in relation to what was going on in the lives of the profes- sionals who were reporting (Lipkin, 2002; Muller, 2001). Muller’s (2001) chronicle occurs in the con- text of a meeting of 10,000 cardiovascular experts convened to discuss progress in atherosclerosis research; he reports the moments of the morning, focusing on the strength of international collabo- ration in a world with fading geographic bound- aries. Lipkin’s (2002) chronicle recounted the story of being an attending physician at Bellvue Hospi- tal, when he was alerted that the World Trade Center was smoking; he notes conflict between his roles as doctor and father/husband, creating a “ten- sion between serving and family” (p. 704) . The September 11 chronicle reported in this article is unique because it is synthesized from the perspective of undergraduate student research par- ticipants and nursing and social psychology re- searchers who were engaged in getting through the Patricia Liehr, PhD RN, Professor, University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston, School of Nursing, Houston, TX; Matthias R. Mehl, Dipl. Psych., Graduate Student, Depart- ment of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX; Linda C. Summers, MSN RN CNS FNP, Doctoral Candi- date, University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston, School of Nursing, Houston, TX; James W. Pennebaker, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX. Supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (MH52391). Address reprint requests to Patricia Liehr, PhD, RN, Univer- sity of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston, School of Nursing, 1100 Holcombe Blvd. 5.518H, Houston, TX 77030. E-mail: Patricia.R.Liehr@uth.tmc.edu © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 0897-1897/04/1701-0002$30.00/0 doi:10.1016/j.apnr.2003.10.010 2 Applied Nursing Research, Vol. 17, No. 1 ( February), 2004: pp 2-9