నైరూప్య

Trauma exposure among Pakistani media professionals: Translation and adaptation of the Journalist Traumatic Exposure Scale (JTES) and preliminary findings

Sara Fatima Malik, Jamil A Malik, and Rubina Hani

Objectives: The study is designed to present statistics on trauma exposure faced by Pakistani media professionals. Additionally, it also included adaptation and translation of the Journalist Traumatic Exposure Scale (JTES) in Urdu language using standard procedures of backward translation method.

Method: The study includes a total of 487 media professionals from 3 provinces (Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), and the capital territory of Islamabad, ages ranging from 20 to 72 years (MÂ ± SD=36.02 Â ± 9.96). Along with a detailed demographic sheet, data was collected on the Journalist Traumatic Exposure Scale.

Results: Among the frequent reporting category i.e., 3-4 times, physical assault is the most prevalent incident with 21.4% of the sample having this experience, followed by street crimes (21.1%) and motor vehicle accidents (19.1%). It is also evidenced that electronic threats (phone calls, SMS), and verbal face-to-face aggression are the most common type of victimizations with a prevalence of more than 35% (n=178, and n=171 respectively). Intimidation through someone following or stalking has a prevalence of 27.5% followed by physical aggression with a prevalence of 21%. Comparatively low but surprisingly an equal prevalence of victimization by both state and non-state agencies is reported. The study also resulted in a valid and reliable instrument for measuring journalist exposure to trauma.

Conclusions: Journalist job nature includes frequent exposure to unpleasant incidents and consistent exposure to such events accumulates underlying pathologies. Hence, it is recommended that precise estimation of prevalence will help design interventions and training for coping.