THE MEDIA’S ROLE IN POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

One goes through different life experiences through her whole life. While some of these experiences cause anxiety, the person uses various defence mechanisms to deal with it, hence is able to continue their daily life without having any problems or crisis. These defence mechanisms may prove to be insufficient against some life experiences and then a crisis occurs. These events that cause the crisis are called trauma experiences. In this paper, even though they didn't live in the earthquake zone or be affected by it, after they watched the Golcuk Earthquake on 17th of August 1999 from TV channels, methodology has been created to discuss the correct use of media in traumatic events like these and to research on the psychiatric diagnosis breakdown of the people who applied to us with mental illnesses. The methods of “Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale” ( CAPS-I)** “The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale” (HAMD)*** “The Beck Anxriety Inventory” (BA？)**** “Impact of Events Scale (IES)***** have been used to the ones who didn't have any psychiatric complaints until the earthquake and after application, following the clinic tests and diagnosis with “Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R*” (SCID-I)* to 10 subjects. 7 of these subjects have been diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and 3 of them with depression. The subjects who were diagnosed with PTSD have scored high on CAPS, IES AND BAO. While HAMD points have been very high on the ones who were diagnosed with depression, BAO points have also been high