Journalists covering war are far more likely to suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression than other journalists, according to a study in American Journal of Psychiatry. This is the first significant study of this group of journalists and represents a sizable segment of the war journalists the world's major news organizations.

The authors, noting a lack of research in this area despite the hazardous nature of the profession, used questionnaires to compare self-reported symptoms from 140 war journalists to answers from 107 journalists who do not cover combat situations. Interviews with 28 of the war journalists were also conducted. The authors observed that despite a "burgeoning" literature on the emotional effects of combat on soldiers and civilians, war journalists had received little attention.

Results showed higher rates of psychiatric problems among the war journalists, according to the authors. "Specifically," they write, "the war journalists drank more heavily and showed higher rates of PTSD and major depression."

Interviews also showed that the PTSD symptoms have profound effects on the journalists. Every war journalist interviewed who suffered from PTSD "spoke of considerable social difficulties, such as an inability to adjust to life back in a civil society, a reluctance to mix with friends, troubled relationships, the use of alcohol as a hypnotic, and embarrassing startle responses that led to social avoidance," according to findings.

Despite these higher levels of psychiatric disturbances, war journalists did not appear any more likely to have received psychological help than the comparison group.

"A prevalent view was that to be a war journalist you had to have the 'right stuff,' " the authors report. "An admission of emotional distress in a macho world was feared as a sign of weakness and a career liability."

In the background of the study is the intense focus of major media on conflict events whose coverage routinely places correspondents in harm's way. The authors note that in 2001 alone, 100 journalists were killed and hundreds were imprisoned or injured.

Of the 28 journalists interviewed for the study, "all had been shot at numerous times, three had been wounded (of whom one had been shot on four separate occasions), three had had close colleagues who were killed while they were working together on assignments, two had been subject to mock executions, two had had bounties placed on their heads, one had survived a plane crash (the pilots were killed), only to be subsequently robbed by soldiers who looted the wreckages, and two had had close colleagues who committed suicide."

Authored by Anthony Feinstein, John Owen and Nancy Blair, the study — "A Hazardous Profession: War Journalists, and Psychopathology" — appears in the September 2002 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. The research article is available online. Feinstein, an assistant professor of psychiatry, and Owen, who was then director of the Freedom Forum European Centre in London, participated in a discussion of trauma among correspondents in an April 2001 program in London. Read the transcript at FreedcomForum.org.

Click here for a National Public Radio (Audio Segment) in which Anthony Feinstein, Christiane Amanpour and other correspondents discuss this study.