Journalists added to trauma after school shooting

This shows that the first responders to a traumatic event should not be journalists hungry for a story. It also shows that once again the rate of PTSD is one out of three.

Shootings caused psychological symptoms for pupils at Jokela High School
Helsingin Sanomat - Helsinki,Uusimaa,Finland

One in three pupils at Jokela High School - scene of last November's school shooting in which a disturbed 18-year-old pupil shot eight people and himself - was found to have psychological trauma symptoms four months after the killings.


Those with symptoms were primarily girls who had come under serious threat of being targeted by the gunman and who had lost friends in the incident.

The facts are presented in a recent study by the National Public Health Institute (KTL).

Nearly half of the girls who answered the questionnaire and roughly one in four boys were seen to have an elevated risk of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in some shape or form.

The figures are appreciably higher than for pupils in the Tampere school used as a control group.

The presence of journalists at the scene and the questions that were put to students in the immediate aftermath of the shootings worsened the pupils' state of mind.

One in three of the young people felt that answering the enquiries of journalists made things worse for them. Only one in ten said they felt their burden was lightened by answering the questions put to them.


It appeared that the problem was particularly concentrated on those pupils who were already suffering a serious psychological reaction to the tragedy.

Following the news coverage was also seen as harmful to the mental well-being of some pupils. Again, the sense of unease was most pronounced among those pupils with a higher risk of PTSD.
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