Are There More Visits To The ER During A Full Moon?

It’s custom for medical staff to attribute strange behavior—the kind that ends in ER visits—to the lunar calendar.

“In my 25 years as an ER nurse, there does appear to be more mayhem with a full moon,” says Janet Bailey, Nurse Manager/Clinical Director of the Emergency Department at Bon Secours Community Hospital, a Member of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network. “Sometimes patients have a tendency to act more agitated at that time. In fact, to blame a crazy day on the full moon is a tradition that has a strong hold on the emergency department.”

While the National Institute of Health studies report “no evidence” of a lunar affect on hospital admission rates (or birth rates), as many as 40 percent of ER physicians and nurses regard “full moon madness” as a true phenomenon, perhaps due to cognitive bias, according to the American Osteopathic Association.