Distress,Worry,and Functioning Following a Global Health Crisis: A National Study of Americans’ Responses to Ebola

Abstract

The 2014 Ebola crisis received unprecedented media attention in the United States, despite low risk of transmission. We examined theoretically derived correlates of psychological response to the crisis, including Ebola-related media exposure, prior mental health history, and stress response to a recent prior collective trauma (the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, BMB). A national probability sample completed a survey 2–4 weeks post-BMB; 18 months later, the same sample reported responses to the Ebola crisis (N = 3,447). History of mental health diagnoses, acute stress response to the BMB, and Ebola-related media exposure were associated with greater psychological distress and functional impairment. Prior acute stress and Ebola-related media exposure were also associated with Ebola-related worry; individuals with higher BMB-related acute stress who consumed more Ebola-related media were more worried about contracting Ebola. Media coverage of the Ebola public health crisis was associated with negative psychological outcomes, even among individuals at low risk for contracting the disease.

Keywords

Ebola virus media acute stress worry

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahern

Galea

Resnick

Vlahov

(2004). Television images and probable posttraumatic stress disorder after September 11. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 192, 217–226. http://doi.org/10.1097/01.nmd.0000116465.99830.ca

Bernstein

K. T.

Ahern

Tracy

Boscarino

J. A.

Vlahov

Galea

(2007). Television watching and the risk of incident probable posttraumatic stress disorder: A prospective evaluation. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 195, 41–47. http://doi.org/10.1097/01.nmd.0000244784.36745.a5

Bourne

Mackay

C. E.

Holmes

E. A.

(2013). The neural basis of flashback formation: The impact of viewing trauma. Psychological Medicine, 43, 1521–1532. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291712002358

Breslau

Chilcoat

H. D.

Kessler

R. C.

Davis

G. C.

(1999). Previous exposure to trauma and PTSD effects of subsequent trauma: Results from the Detroit Area Survey of Trauma. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 902–907. http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/ajp.156.6.902

Breslau

Peterson

E. L.

Schultz

L. R.

(2008). A second look at prior trauma and the posttraumatic stress disorder effects of subsequent trauma. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65, 431–437. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.65.4.431

Cardeña

Koopman

Classen

Waelde

L. C.

Spiegel

(2000). Psychometric properties of the Stanford Acute Stress Reaction Questionnaire (SASRQ): A valid and reliable measure of acute stress. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 13, 719–734. http://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007822603186

Chang

H. J.

Huang

Lee

C. H.

Hsu

Y. J.

Hsieh

C. J.

Chou

Y. J.

(2004). The impact of the SARS epidemic on the utilization of medical services: SARS and the fear of SARS. American Journal of Public Health, 94, 562–564. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.94.4.562

Cohen

(2014). Is Ebola diverting resources from other neglected diseases? Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/is-ebola-diverting-resources-from-other-neglected-diseases-34475

Costa

P. T.

McCrae

R. R.

(1988). Personality in adulthood: A six-year longitudinal study of self-reports and spouse ratings on the NEO Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 853–863. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.5.853

10.

Derogatis

L. R.

(2001). BSI 18, Brief Symptom Inventory 18: Administration, scoring and procedures. Minneapolis, MN: NCS Assessments.

11.

Faasse

Gamble

Cundy

Petrie

K. J.

(2012). Impact of television coverage on the number and type of symptoms reported during a health scare: A retrospective pre–post observational study. BMJ Open, 2(4). http://doi.org/e001607

12.

Fischhoff

(2011). Communicating about the risks of terrorism (or anything else). American Psychologist, 66, 520–531. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0024570

13.

Garfin

D. R.

Holman

E. A.

Silver

R. C.

(2015). Cumulative exposure to prior collective trauma and acute stress responses to the Boston Marathon bombings. Psychological Science, 26, 675–683. http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614561043

14.

Gosling

S. D.

Rentfrow

P. J.

Swann

W. B.

(2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37(6), 504–528. http://doi.org/10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00046-1

15.

Grippo

A. J.

Johnson

A. K.

(2009). Stress, depression and cardiovascular dysregulation: A review of neurobiological mechanisms and the integration of research from preclinical disease models. Stress, 12(1), 1–21. http://doi.org/10.1080/10253890802046281

16.

Hadjistavropoulos

H. D.

Craig

K. D.

Hadjistavropoulos

(1998). Cognitive and behavioral responses to illness information: The role of health anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36, 149–164. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(98)00014-X

17.

Hamel

Firth

Brodie

(2014). Kaiser health policy news index: Special focus on Ebola. Retrieved from http://kff.org/global-health-policy/poll-finding/kaiser-health-policy-news-index-special-focus-on-ebola/

18.

Holman

E. A.

Garfin

D. R.

Silver

R. C.

(2014). Media’s role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 111, 93–98. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1316265110

19.

Holman

E. A.

Silver

R. C.

(2011). Health status and health care utilization following collective trauma: A 3-year national study of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Social Science and Medicine, 73, 483–490. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.018

20.

Holman

E. A.

Silver

R. C.

Poulin

M. J.

Andersen

Gil-Rivas

Mcintosh

D. N.

(2008). Terrorism, acute stress, and cardiovascular health: A 3-year national study following the September 11th attacks. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65, 73–80. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2007.6

21.

Kohut

Doherty

Dimock

Keeter

(2012). In changing news landscape, even television is vulnerable. Retrieved from http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/27/in-changing-news-landscape-even-television-is-vulnerable/

22.

Lubens

(2015). Journalists and public health professionals: Challenges of a symbiotic relationship. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 9, 59–63. http://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2014.127

23.

MacCallum

R. C.

Zhang

Preacher

K. J.

Rucker

D. D.

(2002). On the practice of dichotomization of quantitative variables. Psychological Methods, 7, 19–40. http://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.7.1.19

24.

McDonnel

W. M.

Nelson

D. S.

Schunk

J. E.

(2012). Should we fear “flu fear” itself? Effects of H1N1 influenza fear on ED use. American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 30, 275–282. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajem.2010.11.027

25.

McEwen

B. S.

(2004). Protection and damage from acute and chronic stress: Allostasis and allostatic overload and relevance to the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1032(1), 1–7. http://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1314.001

26.

Ottaviani

Thayer

J. F.

Verkuil

Lonigro

Medea

Couyoumdjian

Brosschot

J. F.

(2016). Physiological concomitants of perseverative cognition: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 142, 231–259. http://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000036

27.

Silver

R. C.

Holman

E. A.

Andersen

J. P.

Poulin

M. J.

Mcintosh

D. N.

Gil-Rivas

(2013). Mental- and physical-health effects of acute exposure to media images of the September 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq War. Psychological Science, 24, 1623–1634. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612460406

28.

Silver

R. C.

Holman

E. A.

McIntosh

D. N.

Poulin

Gil-Rivas

(2002). Nationwide longitudinal study of psychological responses to September 11. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 288, 1235–1244. doi:10.1001/jama.288.10.1235

29.

Silver

R. C.

Holman

E. A.

McIntosh

D. N.

Poulin

Gil-Rivas

Pizarro

(2006). Coping with a national trauma: A nationwide longitudinal study of responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. In Neria

Gross

Marshall

Susser

(Eds.), 9/11: Mental health in the wake of terrorist attacks (pp. 45–70). New York: Cambridge University Press.

30.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2001). National Center for Health Statistics: National Health Interview Survey Questionnaire 2000. Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

31.

Vasterman

Yzermans

C. J.

Dirkzwager

A. J. E.

(2005). The role of the media and media hypes in the aftermath of disasters. Epidemiologic Reviews, 27, 107–114. https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/mxi002

32.

Ware

J. E.

Sherbourne

C. D.

(1992). The MOS 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF–36): I. Conceptual framework and item selection. Medical Care, 30, 473–483. http://doi.org/10.1097/00005650-199206000-00002

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.03 MB