This Diary Study Just Happened To Be Taking Place When Disaster Struck, Providing A Rare Insight Into Vicarious Experience Of Traumatic Events

By Matthew Warren Major disasters clearly take a toll on the survivors who had the misfortune to go through them. But there is another group of people who can suffer mental and physical distress from disasters: those who experience them second-hand, through media coverage and conversation. After 9/11, for example, researchers found an increase in symptoms of depression and stress among Americans who hadn’t directly experienced the terrorist attacks.  But there have always been doubts about studies purporting to show evidence of vicarious distress. Because disasters occur randomly researchers are usually unable to gather data until weeks after the event, and they often have no record of people’s baseline mood before the disaster. By chance a new study was able to overcome these limitations. When tragedy struck the Netherlands in 2014, there was a ready-made group of participants who were already recording their daily experiences. In May of that year, Bertus Jeronimus and colleagues at the University of Groningen had begun a crowd-sourced diary study called “HowNutsAreTheDutch” to examine mental health in the Netherlands. Three times per day for 30 days, participants completed questionnaires on their phones that measured their mood and recent activities.  Two months into the project, on 17 July 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists, killing all 298 on board. One hundred and ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Mental health Source Type: blogs