The psychological wellbeing of Iranian journalists: a descriptive study.

OBJECTIVE: Iran ranks 173 out of 180 countries on an index of press freedom. The purpose of the study was to assess the psychological wellbeing of Iranian journalists and document the stressors encountered in their work.

DESIGN: A secure website was established and participants were given their unique identifying number and password to access the site.

SETTING: Newsrooms in Iran and the diaspora.

PARTICIPANTS: Responses were received from 114 journalists (76%) of whom 65.8% were living in the diaspora. The mean age was 37.8 years (SD = 7.30) and 57% male.

MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURES: Type of stressor and behavioural data: Impact of Event Scale-revised for posttraumatic stress disorder, Beck Depression Inventory-II for depression.

RESULTS: Stressors include arrest (41.2%), torture (19.3%), assault (10.5%), intimidation (51.4%) and family threatened (43.1%). Eighty nine (78.1%) journalists had stopped working on a story because of intimidation. Arrest, torture, intimidation and family threatened were associated with more intrusive and arousal PTSD symptoms (p < .01 to .001) and assault and intimidation with more depressive symptoms (p < .05). Almost a third of Iranian journalists regularly used barbiturates, with use correlating with symptoms of intrusion (p < .0001), avoidance (p < .01), arousal (p < .0001) and depression (p < .0001). 46.5% of Iranian journalists were not receiving therapy for their distress.

CONCLUSIONS: The findings, the first of their kind, provide data highlighting the extraordinary degree of danger confronted by Iranian journalists, their emotional distress in response to this and their proclivity to self-medicate with barbiturates.