Risk factors associated with posttraumatic stress indicators among middle and senior high school students in Oklahoma City

The impact of violence on children and adolescents is of growing concern. Increased occurrences of violence as well as the media's increasingly graphic, "real time" images of traumatic events, have both short-term and long-term, cumulative psychological effects on children and adolescents. The focus of the current investigation was the psychological reactions of students in the middle and senior high schools of the Oklahoma City Public Schools following the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. Self-reported data were collected seven weeks after the bombing from all students in grades 6-12 who chose to participate. A total of 3,218 students returned completed questionnaires which included the questions from the Horowitz Impact of Event Scale (IES). Questionnaires were completed during a school class period. Multivariate analysis revealed a number of statistically significant, nonredundant predictors of variability in total posttraumatic stress scores (PTS), as well as its component symptom clusters, arousal, intrusion, and avoidance. Direct exposure, defined as injury or knowing someone injured or killed, accounted for approximately 7% of variance in total PTS. The addition of amount of bombing-related television coverage watched doubled the model's prediction of PTS. Grade level, gender, and retrospective accounts of initial psychological responses were also significant predictors of PTS and the symptom subgroups. Finally, subjects' perceptions of their own personal safety and security seven weeks after the bombing accounted for additional nonredundant variability in PTS and the symptom clusters. The final model accounted for more than one-third of variability in total PTS $\rm (R\sp2\sb{adj.} = .38),$ arousal $\rm R\sp2\sb{adj.} = .32),$ and intrusion $\rm (R\sp2\sb{adj.} = .36).$ The amount of variability in the avoidance symptom cluster was somewhat lower $\rm (R\sp2\sb{adj} = .20).$ Restoring or improving children and adolescents' perceptions o