The association of mass trauma media contact with depression and anxiety: A meta-analytic review

Abstract

Background: Meta-analyses have documented a small positive association of mass trauma media consumption with posttraumatic stress outcomes but have not examined the association of media contact with depression or anxiety. Methods: From an initial search of 2194 papers, 157 were identified for review leading to a meta-analysis of 20 studies on depression and 12 studies on anxiety. Random-effect models were used to estimate the summary effect size of the association between media contact and the psychological outcomes. Results: This meta-analysis revealed a statistically significant and small positive association between mass trauma media consumption and depression. The association between media contact and anxiety was not statistically significant overall, but there was evidence to conclude that the association was small and positive in adult samples. None of the examined covariates explained the observed heterogeneity across studies for either depression or anxiety. Limitations: The high heterogeneity among effect sizes indicates the need to examine patterns of association across various subgroups, which could not be explored comprehensively in the present analysis because of the small number of studies. Conclusions: The association of media contact with depression and anxiety in adults was small but statistically significant suggesting that clinicians should assess news contact as a small contributing factor in those presenting with depression and/or anxiety symptoms after mass casualty events. Journalists might consider including information on mental health resources in mass trauma news coverage. Future studies should explore newer media forms and examine an expanded set of moderators.

Keywords

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Disaster
• Media
• News
• Terrorism