Citation

Backholm K, Idås T. J. Trauma. Stress 2015; 28(2): 142-148.

Affiliation

Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/jts.22001

PMID

25864505

Abstract

News journalists working on crisis-related assignments may experience dilemmas with regard to how to conduct their work without causing additional harm to first-hand victims. In this study, we investigated how exposure to journalistic ethical dilemmas during the Oslo/Utøya terror attack in 2011 and subsequent work-related guilt were related to the development of posttraumatic stress (PTS) reactions. Norwegian journalists (N = 371) covering the terror attack participated in a web-based survey 8-9 months after the incident. We found that females reported more ethical dilemmas during the assignment than males (n = 356, d = 0.51). We also found that being on the scene was not related to more exposure to dilemmas (n = 311, d = 0.01). Moreover, we discovered that work-related guilt had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between exposure to ethical dilemmas and severity of PTS reactions (n = 344, completely standardized indirect effect size =.11, 95% CI [.04,.19]. The results showed that exposure to ethical dilemmas may affect the development of long-term psychological impairment. We concluded that media organizations can prevent postcrisis impairment by preparing employees for possible exposure to dilemmas during crisis-related assignments.

Language: en