Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms among Journalists Repeatedly Covering COVID-19 News

Gabriella Tyson and Jennifer Wild
Additional contact information
Gabriella Tyson: Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1TW, UK
Jennifer Wild: Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1TW, UK

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 16, 1-8

Abstract: The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in many journalists repeatedly covering stories related to human suffering. This study investigates whether these journalists experienced higher rates of psychological distress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms than those who have been working during the pandemic yet covering stories other than COVID-19 and aims to identify what factors may protect journalists from developing trauma-related symptoms. We assessed journalists ( n = 120) working during the COVID-19 pandemic using self-report measures. Journalists repeatedly covering COVID-19 stories had significantly higher psychological distress (? 2 = 0.04) and PTSD symptoms (? 2 = 0.08), but not depression, compared to journalists who did not report on COVID-19. Rumination and numbing in response to unwanted memories predicted PTSD symptoms (R 2 = 0.53) and may be risk factors for PTSD in this population. Unhelpful resilience appraisals distinguished journalists who reported on COVID-19 and who developed distressing re-experiencing symptoms from those who similarly reported on distressing material and who did not develop symptoms. Targeting resilience appraisals may be helpful in reducing re-experiencing symptoms after trauma exposure.

Keywords: PTSD; journalists; COVID-19; predictors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8536/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8536/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:16:p:8536-:d:613250

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().