Citation

Strenge H. Nervenarzt, Der 2003; 74(3): 269-273.

Vernacular Title

Selbstbeurteilung von Stressreaktionen infolge der Terroranschlage vom

Affiliation

Institut für Medizinische Psychologie, Universität Kiel, Kiel. strenge@med-psych.uni-kiel.de

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00115-002-1458-1

PMID

12627243

Abstract

The present paper describes psychological sequelae of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City in a cohort of 174 medical students (104 females, 70 men, age 18 to 37 years) in their first academic year at the University of Kiel,Germany. For self-report of traumatic stress reactions,the Revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-R) was administered 6 and 9 weeks after the disaster. The students reported weak to moderate levels of distress, the average IES-R scores on the intrusion and avoidance subscales were 11.1 (SD 6.2) and 10.6 (SD 6.4), respectively, and 5.2 (SD 4.1) for the hyperarousal scale. All symptoms had clearly faded at 9 weeks. Students with traumatic life events indicated significantly higher scores in some avoidance items. The current data suggest that the IES-R can be used as a screening measure in future research of trauma-related stress reactions also in people exposed to catastrophes by media coverage.

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