• Betty Pfefferbaum, Carol S North, Rose L Pfefferbaum, Haekyung Jeon-Slaughter, J Brian Houston, and James L Regens.
• Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. bettypfefferbaum@ouhsc.edu
• Int J Emerg Ment Health. 2012 Jan 1;14(4):247-55.

AbstractThe objective of this study was to examine terrorism media coverage and psychiatric outcomes in directly-exposed terrorism survivors. The study used (1) self-report questionnaires to retrospectively assess event-related media behaviors and reactions in a cross sectional design and (2) longitudinal structured diagnostic interviews to assess psychopathologic outcomes. The participants were 99 directly-exposed Oklahoma City bombing survivors who were initially studied six months after the 1995 incident. Though a fear reaction to bombing-related television coverage and fear-driven discontinuation of bombing-related media contact were associated with diagnostic outcomes, the number of hours viewing bombing-related television coverage in the first week after the event was not associated with the prevalence of bombing-related posttraumatic stress disorder or post-bombing major depressive disorder during the seven years post event. The results raise doubt about the effects of quantified incident-related television viewing on clinically-significant emotional outcomes in directly-exposed terrorism survivors.

32 keywords...

hide…