Citation

Feinstein A. J. Trauma. Stress 2012; 25(4): 480-483.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ant.feinstein@utoronto.ca.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/jts.21715

PMID

22807229

Abstract

Mexican journalists are frequently the victims of violence, often drug related. The purpose of the study was to assess their mental well-being. Of 104 journalists recruited from 3 news organizations, those who had stopped working on drug-related stories because of intimidation from the criminal drug cartels (n = 26) had significantly greater social dysfunction (p = .024); and more depressive (p = .001) and higher intrusive (p = .027), avoidance (p = .005), and arousal (p = .033) symptoms than journalists living and working under threat in regions of drug violence (n = 61). They also had more arousal (p = .05) and depressive (p = .027) symptoms than journalists (n = 17) never threatened before and living in regions without a drug problem. These findings provide preliminary data on the deleterious effects of drug-related violence on the Mexican media, amplifying the concerns expressed by journalist watchdog organizations monitoring the state of the press in the country.

Language: en