Mexican journalists: an investigation of their emotional health.
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.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ant.feinstein@utoronto.ca
Anthony
A
Feinstein
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001143:Arousal; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D003863:Depression / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D013287:Illicit Drugs; D020452:Journalism; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico; D008875:Middle Aged; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D012449:Safety; D057566:Self Report; D012920:Social Behavior Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*
D013287:Illicit Drugs