Exposure to mass trauma is common. In the United States, 15% of women and 19% of men have reported lifetime exposure to natural disasters alone.1 Since the advent of 24-hour television news, exposure to mass violence and natural disasters through the media is even more widespread. Although exposure to trauma has a wide range of psychopathological consequences, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been shown to be the most common. Evidence from epidemiologic studies indicates initial but not extended increases in rates of PTSD symptoms among individuals indirectly exposed to mass trauma through sources such as mass media. This raises questions about the trajectory of clinical course in these individuals and the possibility of preexisting vulnerability among those with enduring symptoms. Importantly, these questions may be directly addressed by research using fear conditioning and extinction models, ultimately aiding in the identification of high-risk individuals for triage of clinical interventions that prevent development of, or enhance recovery from, PTSD through enhancement of basic extinction processes.
Language: en
", language="en", issn="0098-7484", doi="10.1001/jama.2011.1358", url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2011.1358" }