Television Exposure in Children after a Terrorist Incident

TLDR

The study examined how bomb‑related television viewing, alongside physical and emotional exposure, affected posttraumatic stress symptoms in middle‑school students after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and suggested future research to explore bidirectional relationships between early symptoms and subsequent TV viewing. Researchers surveyed more than 2,000 middle‑school students in Oklahoma City seven weeks after the bombing, measuring total PTSD symptom scores and individual symptom cluster scores. Extensive bomb‑related television viewing was linked to higher posttraumatic stress symptoms at seven weeks, even among children with no physical or emotional exposure, indicating that TV exposure may modestly contribute to or signal distress and should be monitored.

Abstract

This study examined the influence of bomb-related television viewing in the context of physical and emotional exposure on posttraumatic stress symptoms—intrusion, avoidance, and arousal—in middle school students following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Over 2,000 middle school students in Oklahoma City were surveyed 7 weeks after the incident. The primary outcome measures were the total posttraumatic stress symptom score and symptom cluster scores at the time of assessment. Bomb-related television viewing in the aftermath of the disaster was extensive. Both emotional and television exposure were associated with post-traumatic stress at 7 weeks. Among children with no physical or emotional exposure, the degree of television exposure was directly related to posttraumatic stress symptomatology. These findings suggest that television viewing in the aftermath of a disaster may make a small contribution to subsequent posttraumatic stress symptomatology in children or that increased television viewing may be a sign of current distress and that it should be monitored. Future research should examine further whether early symptoms predict increased television viewing and/or whether television viewing predicts subsequent symptoms.