A pilot study of the impact of the Asian Tsunami on a group of Asian media workers.

The Asian Tsunami that struck on December 26, 2004, claimed tens of thousands of lives. To bring up-to-date news to the public, many media workers raced to the frontline. Singapore journalists were among the first to arrive at the devastated scenes of the affected countries. Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD) was offered to these media personnel about a week after they returned from assignment. Twelve of the media workers participated in the CISD and also completed the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), The Impact of Events Scale (IES), and a feedback questionnaire on what was helpful to them during the debriefing. Twenty-five percent of the respondents displayed psychiatric symptoms (GHQ-28 score > or = 5) with highest scorings being in the somatic domain. One third had IES > 30 with higher scores on the avoidance scale. Seventy-five percent of the participants indicated moderate (8.6-19) to high (> 19.0) total scores on the IES. All the participants reported that CISD was valuable. This pilot study provides support for the need to address the emotional aftermath of impacted media workers in the wake of disasters.