ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2023
Threat through the Screen? Association between Proximity and/or Watching Media Coverage of a Terrorist Attack and Health.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Adolescence under fire: a multi-method study of psychological vulnerability and resilience among adolescents impacted by war.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- [Impact of Critical Events During Deployments on the Mental Health of Military Personnel].Gesundheitswesen (Bundesverband der Arzte des Offentlichen Gesundheitsdienstes (Germany)) · 2025Article
- The psychosocial aid response after the 22/03/2016 attacks in Belgium: a community case study.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionAfter terrorist attacks, media coverage of the attacks is extensive. There are some indications that there is an association between watching the media coverage and certain health reactions, both mental and somatic. Most studies occur in the United States and often months after the initial attack. In the current study, we investigated the terrorist attacks in Belgium on 22 March 2016.
methodsAn online cross-sectional survey was conducted one week after the attacks among the general population of Belgium. We measured hours of media watching of the terrorist attacks (hereafter media watching), adjusted scales of the Patient Health Questionaire-4 (PHQ-4) to measure mental symptoms and the Patient Health Questionaire-15 (PHQ-15) to measure somatic symptoms, proximity to Brussels (home, work and overall proximity) and background factors such as gender, age and level of education. Respondents were included if they answered the survey between 29 March 2016 and 5 April 2016.
resultsA total of 2972 respondents were included. Overall, media watching was significantly associated with both mental symptoms (
conclusionMedia-watching is associated with acute health reactions after terrorist attacks. However, the direction of the relationship is unclear, as it might also be that people with health issues seek out more media.
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