This study examined the influence of bomb-related television viewing in the context of physical and emotional exposure on posttraumatic stress symptoms--intrusion, avoidance, and arousal--in middle school students following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Over 2,000 middle school students in Oklahoma City were surveyed 7 weeks after the incident. The primary outcome measures were the total posttraumatic stress symptom score and symptom cluster scores at the time of assessment. Bomb-related television viewing in the aftermath of the disaster was extensive. Both emotional and television exposure were associated with posttraumatic stress at 7 weeks. Among children with no physical or emotional exposure, the degree of television exposure was directly related to posttraumatic stress symptomatology. These findings suggest that television viewing in the aftermath of a disaster may make a small contribution to subsequent posttraumatic stress symptomatology in children or that increased television viewing may be a sign of current distress and that it should be monitored. Future research should examine further whether early symptoms predict increased television viewing and/or whether television viewing predicts subsequent symptoms.

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These data provide weak support for a dose effect relationship between degree of NP impairment and level of alcoholic drinking in the past 6 months but no evidence for an influence of chronicity.

This study was conducted to examine the role of childhood behavioral disorders (CBDs) and residual attention deficit disorder (ADDRT) in alcohol-related cognitive dysfunction in male and female subjects. Alcoholic (n = 44 females, 56 males) and control (n = 40 females, 40 males) subjects completed assessments that included measures of CBDs, ADDRT, and cognitive and psychosocial functioning. Cognitive tests were specifically designed to assess efficiency in function. As expected, alcoholics were inferior to controls in their cognitive efficiency [F(1,171) = 10.43, p = 0.0015]. Alcoholics reported more CBDs [F(1,161) = 12.02, p = 0.0007], regardless of sex. They also reported more ADDRT [F(1,173) = 44.12, p = 0.0001] than did controls. There were also sex [F(1,173) = 13.31, p = 0.0004] and group by sex effects [F(1,173) = 3.93, p = 0.05]. Female alcoholics reported more ADDRT symptoms than any other group. Regression equations conducted to clarify the relation between group, sex, CBDs, ADDRT, and cognitive efficiency indicated that the best predictor of cognitive efficiency was group classification (alcoholic versus control). That is, although symptoms of behavioral disorders were reported significantly more frequently by both male and female alcoholic subjects, these symptoms could not account for the cognitive impairment observed in either sex.

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These data provide weak support for a dose effect relationship between degree of NP impairment and level of alcoholic drinking in the past 6 months but no evidence for an influence of chronicity.