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Media Exposure and the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following a Mass traumatic Event: An In-silico Experiment

Introduction: Following mass traumatic events, greater exposure to traditional media like television (TV) about the event is associated with higher burden of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, we know little about how social media exposure, combined with other media sources, shapes the...

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Autores principales: Abdalla, Salma M., Cohen, Gregory H., Tamrakar, Shailesh, Koya, Shaffi Fazaludeen, Galea, Sandro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8656276/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34899406
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.674263
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author Abdalla, Salma M.
Cohen, Gregory H.
Tamrakar, Shailesh
Koya, Shaffi Fazaludeen
Galea, Sandro
author_facet Abdalla, Salma M.
Cohen, Gregory H.
Tamrakar, Shailesh
Koya, Shaffi Fazaludeen
Galea, Sandro
author_sort Abdalla, Salma M.
collection PubMed
description Introduction: Following mass traumatic events, greater exposure to traditional media like television (TV) about the event is associated with higher burden of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, we know little about how social media exposure, combined with other media sources, shapes the population burden of PTSD following mass traumatic events. Materials and Methods: We built a microsimulation of 1,18,000 agents that was demographically comparable to the population of Parkland and Coral Springs, Florida that experienced the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. We parametrized the model using data from prior traumatic events and built an internal social network structure to facilitate the estimation of community PTSD prevalence following exposure to TV and social media coverage of the shooting. Results: Overall, PTSD prevalence in the community due to exposure to TV coverage of the shooting was 3.1%. Shifting the whole population's hours of TV watching to the lower half of the population distribution decreased PTSD prevalence to 1.3% while increasing TV watching to the upper half of the distribution increased the prevalence to 3.5%. Casual (i.e., viewing posts) social media use in addition to exposure to TV coverage increased PTSD prevalence to 3.4%; overall prevalence increased to 5.3% when agents shared videos related to the shooting on social media. Conclusion: This microsimulation shows that availability and exposure to media coverage of mass traumatic events, particularly as social media becomes more ubiquitous, has the potential to increase community PTSD prevalence following these events. Future research could fruitfully examine the mechanisms that might explain these associations and potential interventions that can mitigate the role of media in shaping the mental health of populations following traumatic events.
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spelling pubmed-86562762021-12-10 Media Exposure and the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following a Mass traumatic Event: An In-silico Experiment Abdalla, Salma M. Cohen, Gregory H. Tamrakar, Shailesh Koya, Shaffi Fazaludeen Galea, Sandro Front Psychiatry Psychiatry Introduction: Following mass traumatic events, greater exposure to traditional media like television (TV) about the event is associated with higher burden of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, we know little about how social media exposure, combined with other media sources, shapes the population burden of PTSD following mass traumatic events. Materials and Methods: We built a microsimulation of 1,18,000 agents that was demographically comparable to the population of Parkland and Coral Springs, Florida that experienced the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. We parametrized the model using data from prior traumatic events and built an internal social network structure to facilitate the estimation of community PTSD prevalence following exposure to TV and social media coverage of the shooting. Results: Overall, PTSD prevalence in the community due to exposure to TV coverage of the shooting was 3.1%. Shifting the whole population's hours of TV watching to the lower half of the population distribution decreased PTSD prevalence to 1.3% while increasing TV watching to the upper half of the distribution increased the prevalence to 3.5%. Casual (i.e., viewing posts) social media use in addition to exposure to TV coverage increased PTSD prevalence to 3.4%; overall prevalence increased to 5.3% when agents shared videos related to the shooting on social media. Conclusion: This microsimulation shows that availability and exposure to media coverage of mass traumatic events, particularly as social media becomes more ubiquitous, has the potential to increase community PTSD prevalence following these events. Future research could fruitfully examine the mechanisms that might explain these associations and potential interventions that can mitigate the role of media in shaping the mental health of populations following traumatic events. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8656276/ /pubmed/34899406 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.674263 Text en Copyright © 2021 Abdalla, Cohen, Tamrakar, Koya and Galea. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Abdalla, Salma M.
Cohen, Gregory H.
Tamrakar, Shailesh
Koya, Shaffi Fazaludeen
Galea, Sandro
Media Exposure and the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following a Mass traumatic Event: An In-silico Experiment
title Media Exposure and the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following a Mass traumatic Event: An In-silico Experiment
title_full Media Exposure and the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following a Mass traumatic Event: An In-silico Experiment
title_fullStr Media Exposure and the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following a Mass traumatic Event: An In-silico Experiment
title_full_unstemmed Media Exposure and the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following a Mass traumatic Event: An In-silico Experiment
title_short Media Exposure and the Risk of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Following a Mass traumatic Event: An In-silico Experiment
title_sort media exposure and the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder following a mass traumatic event: an in-silico experiment
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8656276/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34899406
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.674263
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