Witnessing trauma in the digital era: Uncensored media associates with posttraumatic stress in perinatal women.

BACKGROUND

Digital media increasingly shape how populations encounter large-scale traumatic events, enabling real-time exposure to uncensored graphic content among individuals not directly exposed. However, whether this form of indirect exposure is associated with posttraumatic stress responses, particularly following collective trauma, remains poorly understood.

METHODS

We studied 630 perinatal women within the first months following the October 7, 2023, attacks and the Israel-Hamas War, none of whom were directly exposed to the attacks. Participants were assessed for posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, demographic characteristics, psychosocial factors, and trauma exposure; geographic exposure (physical proximity to threat), interpersonal indirect exposure (e.g., knowing affected individuals), and media exposure (engagement with censored and uncensored trauma-related content). Hierarchical regression analyses examined the association between media exposure and PTSD symptom severity while accounting for relevant risk factors.

RESULTS

24.1% of the sample met criteria for probable PTSD. Intrusion and alterations in arousal and reactivity were the most frequently endorsed symptom clusters. Regression analysis revealed that greater exposure to uncensored traumatic video content was associated with higher PTSD symptom severity, after controlling for mental health history, psychosocial resources, religiosity, and other forms of trauma exposure (β = 0.153, p < 0.001), with media exposure explaining an additional 2.8% of the variance.

CONCLUSIONS

Exposure to uncensored traumatic digital content was independently associated with greater PTSD symptom severity among perinatal women not directly exposed to the events. These findings suggest that digitally mediated exposure may represent an important contextual form of trauma exposure following collective trauma.