Reporting on COVID-19 has caused stress, anxiety, and depression among journalists

The report on Coronavirus' pandemic has caused anxiety and depression among journalists. So says a study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Toronto, conducted by Dr. Anthony Feinstein, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Meera Selva, Director of the Felowship Journalist Programme at Reuters Institute for Journalism Research.

The study shows that reporting on the news about Codí-19 has caused well - funded stress, anxiety, and depression among journalists who work for large media organizations. The study was conducted by asking 73 journalists about their work and the emotional state. Polls with journalists took place in June 2020, the period in which almost all countries were affected by Covid-19.

All journalists questioned have worked with stories directly related to pandemic. Initial results of the study show that around 70% of journalists suffer from several levels of psychological concern, namely 26% have clinical anxiety associated with symptoms of concern, insomnia, fatigue and poor concentration.

About 11% of the journalists questioned showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress involving memories of a traumatic event related to Avid-19, guilt, fear, horror, shame, anger, etc. The preliminary results of this study show that journalists work on very high pressure so that the media and others know how to respond to the problems we have identified.

These are the preliminary results and the work goes on. The possible reasons and solutions will be discussed in later analyses and in the following:x1> - researchers say.