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Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health

Introduction: After terrorist attacks, media coverage of the attacks is extensive. There are some indications that there is an association between watching the media coverage and certain health reactions, both mental and somatic. Most studies occur in the United States and often months after the ini...

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Autores principales: Van Overmeire, Roel, Stene, Lise Eilin, Vandekerckhove, Marie, Six, Stefaan, Deschepper, Reginald, Bilsen, Johan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9956931/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36833572
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20042876
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author Van Overmeire, Roel
Stene, Lise Eilin
Vandekerckhove, Marie
Six, Stefaan
Deschepper, Reginald
Bilsen, Johan
author_facet Van Overmeire, Roel
Stene, Lise Eilin
Vandekerckhove, Marie
Six, Stefaan
Deschepper, Reginald
Bilsen, Johan
author_sort Van Overmeire, Roel
collection PubMed
description Introduction: After terrorist attacks, media coverage of the attacks is extensive. There are some indications that there is an association between watching the media coverage and certain health reactions, both mental and somatic. Most studies occur in the United States and often months after the initial attack. In the current study, we investigated the terrorist attacks in Belgium on 22 March 2016. Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted one week after the attacks among the general population of Belgium. We measured hours of media watching of the terrorist attacks (hereafter media watching), adjusted scales of the Patient Health Questionaire-4 (PHQ-4) to measure mental symptoms and the Patient Health Questionaire-15 (PHQ-15) to measure somatic symptoms, proximity to Brussels (home, work and overall proximity) and background factors such as gender, age and level of education. Respondents were included if they answered the survey between 29 March 2016 and 5 April 2016. Results: A total of 2972 respondents were included. Overall, media watching was significantly associated with both mental symptoms (p < 0.001) and somatic symptoms (p < 0.001), while controlling for age, gender, level of education and proximity. Watching more than three hours of media was associated with more mental and somatic symptoms (p < 0.001). Compared to proximity, media watching was, in general, a better association. For geographical factors, watching more than three hours of media indicated equally high scores for mental symptoms and somatic symptoms as work proximity (p = 0.015) and overall proximity to the attacks (p = 0.024). Conclusion: Media-watching is associated with acute health reactions after terrorist attacks. However, the direction of the relationship is unclear, as it might also be that people with health issues seek out more media.
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spelling pubmed-99569312023-02-25 Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health Van Overmeire, Roel Stene, Lise Eilin Vandekerckhove, Marie Six, Stefaan Deschepper, Reginald Bilsen, Johan Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Introduction: After terrorist attacks, media coverage of the attacks is extensive. There are some indications that there is an association between watching the media coverage and certain health reactions, both mental and somatic. Most studies occur in the United States and often months after the initial attack. In the current study, we investigated the terrorist attacks in Belgium on 22 March 2016. Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted one week after the attacks among the general population of Belgium. We measured hours of media watching of the terrorist attacks (hereafter media watching), adjusted scales of the Patient Health Questionaire-4 (PHQ-4) to measure mental symptoms and the Patient Health Questionaire-15 (PHQ-15) to measure somatic symptoms, proximity to Brussels (home, work and overall proximity) and background factors such as gender, age and level of education. Respondents were included if they answered the survey between 29 March 2016 and 5 April 2016. Results: A total of 2972 respondents were included. Overall, media watching was significantly associated with both mental symptoms (p < 0.001) and somatic symptoms (p < 0.001), while controlling for age, gender, level of education and proximity. Watching more than three hours of media was associated with more mental and somatic symptoms (p < 0.001). Compared to proximity, media watching was, in general, a better association. For geographical factors, watching more than three hours of media indicated equally high scores for mental symptoms and somatic symptoms as work proximity (p = 0.015) and overall proximity to the attacks (p = 0.024). Conclusion: Media-watching is associated with acute health reactions after terrorist attacks. However, the direction of the relationship is unclear, as it might also be that people with health issues seek out more media. MDPI 2023-02-07 /pmc/articles/PMC9956931/ /pubmed/36833572 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20042876 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Van Overmeire, Roel
Stene, Lise Eilin
Vandekerckhove, Marie
Six, Stefaan
Deschepper, Reginald
Bilsen, Johan
Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health
title Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health
title_full Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health
title_fullStr Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health
title_full_unstemmed Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health
title_short Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health
title_sort threat through the screen? association between proximity and/or watching media coverage of a terrorist attack and health
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9956931/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36833572
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20042876
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