Efficacy of stimulus discrimination training for reducing unwanted memories in student journalists.

Background

Journalists are frequently exposed to traumatic images and events, which may contribute to poor mental health, especially in those starting in the profession. Evidence-based preventative tools are needed to reduce the effects of exposure to these occupational stressors. Previous research demonstrates that the strategy journalists most commonly apply to traumatic images is suppression.

Objective

This experiment investigated whether stimulus discrimination, a technique used in cognitive therapy for PTSD (CT-PTSD; Ehlers et al., 2005. Cognitive therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder: development and evaluation. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43(4), 413-431) for reducing intrusive trauma memories, is more effective than memory suppression.

Methods

Student journalists were randomly allocated to one session of online training in stimulus discrimination (N = 34; Mage = 23.65, SD = 4.18; 24 female) or suppression (N = 34; Mage = 24.26, SD = 4.55; 24 female) before exposure to analogue trauma film clips. Participants then completed daily diaries of intrusive memories of the film clips for one week and completed PTSD symptom measures at one-week follow-up.

Results

Compared to participants trained in memory suppression, those trained in stimulus discrimination reported significantly fewer intrusive memories, less distress associated with intrusions and lower PTSD symptom severity at follow-up. There were no training-specific effects associated with depression or resilience at follow-up.

Conclusions

The study found that student journalists can be trained in stimulus discrimination and that this CT-PTSD tool significantly reduced intrusive memories and associated PTSD symptoms after post-training exposure to traumatic images.