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PTSD symptoms affected children’s reaction to TV viewing of disasters

The severity of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in children who watch natural disaster-related television coverage may depend on pre-existing PTSD symptoms, researchers from the University of New Orleans reported.

“The role of the media in youths’ behavior continues to be a contentious issue in psychological science, with criticism often focusing on the need to better understand the conditions under which media influence behavior,” the researchers wrote.

To understand those conditions,Carl F. Weems, MD, and colleagues followed 141 children in fourth to eighth grades whose New Orleans neighborhood experienced massive flooding and damage during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The children, who all attended the same school, were assessed for PTSD symptoms 12 and 6 months before Hurricane Gustav, which also wreaked devastation in that area in 2008. The researchers assessed PTSD symptoms and the amount of disaster-related television coverage the children watched 1 month after Gustav made landfall. To measure perceptions of self-harm, children were asked if they thought they would be injured during the hurricane, and distress was measured by asking how frightened the children were during Gustav.

According to Weems and colleagues, 11% of the children reported that they had not watched Gustav coverage at all, 33% said they watched “a little,” 25% watched “a lot,” and 31% said they had watched “a whole lot.” The amount of Gustav-related television coverage children watched was significantly associated with PTSD symptoms developed after Gustav (P<.05), but not with PTSD symptoms developed before Gustav. The researchers then controlled for PTSD symptoms developed before Gustav and found that PTSD symptoms were significantly predicted by pre-existing PTSD symptoms, perception of self-harm and viewing disaster-related television coverage (P<.001).

“Although pre-existing symptoms did not account for the linkages between TV viewing and post-disaster PTSD symptoms, they are a potentially important factor in identifying which children are likely to be most negatively affected by watching TV coverage of a disaster,” the researchers wrote, adding that practitioners who have young patients with anxiety disorders should inform parents about the potential negative effects of media.

Disclosure: The researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.