Children’s State Anxiety in Reaction to Disaster Media Cues: A Preliminary Test of a Multivariate Model Claudio D. Ortiz Pennsylvania State University Wendy K. Silverman and James Jaccard Florida International University Annette M. La Greca University of Miami This study examined a multivariate conceptual model regarding the relations among life events, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, social support, and negative coping, and how these relations influence children’s state anxiety in reaction to disaster media cues. Participants were 248 Hispanic/ Latino elementary school students (Grades 2–5) from a hurricane prone region. To first examine whether children would show elevated state anxiety in response to disaster media cues, 185 (75%) of the 248 children were shown disaster media cues. These children’s state anxiety was compared with the state anxiety of a comparison group: 63 children (25%) of the 248 children, who were shown a neutral weather film. The data from the 185 children shown the disaster media were used to evaluate the study’s conceptual model. State anxiety was statistically significantly higher in the children shown the disaster media cues than the children shown the neutral weather film. Structural equation modeling results indicated that children’s perceived available social support and use of coping strategies predicted state anxiety following exposure to the media cues of disaster. Life events and preexisting depression symptoms did not significantly predict social support and coping; child anxiety symptoms significantly predicted perceived social support. The study represents an initial step toward establishing and empiri- cally evaluating a multivariate model of children’s reactions to disaster cues. The study’s findings are discussed in the context of developing preventive interventions for children at-risk for exposure to disasters. Keywords: children, reactions, anxiety, disaster, media Research documents that children show adverse reactions in- cluding increased anxiety upon direct exposure to natural disasters (e.g., severe hurricanes; Garrison et al., 1995; La Greca, Silver- man, & Wasserstein, 1998; Lonigan, Shannon, Finch, Daugherty, & Taylor, 1991; Russoniello et al., 2002; Weems et al., 2007). Research further documents that the level of direct exposure, the child’s perceived social support, the child’s coping skills, and the child’s preexisting anxiety symptoms predict children’s long term negative reactions to severe hurricane exposure (e.g., Garrison et al., 1995; La Greca et al., 1998; Lonigan et al., 1991; Russoniello et al., 2002; Weems et al., 2007). Direct exposure to a traumatic event includes not only physical presence at a distressing event, but also experiencing a distressing event through the physical presence of a close friend or family member (Pfefferbaum, Pfef- ferbaum, North, & Neas, 2002). Studies in the child disaster area suggest that exposure to media cues of traumatic events also leads to negative reactions (Goenjian et al., 1995; Pfefferbaum et al., 2000; Thabet, Abed, & Vostanis, 2002). Studies that have documented children’s negative reactions to media cues have examined these effects in samples that were impacted by the event. Following the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995, Pfefferbaum and colleagues examined whether there was a relation between sixth graders’ exposure to media cues of the bombing and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (Pfefferbaum et al., 2000; Pfefferbaum et al., 2003). Using two independent samples (N = 69 in Pfefferbaum et al., 2000; N = 88 in Pfefferbaum et al., 2003), both studies found similar results: child exposure to disaster media cues was posi- tively and significantly associated with child PTSD symptoms. Similar findings were obtained in research on children’s reactions to media cues of the Sept 11th 2001 terrorist attacks (Saylor, Cowart, Lipovsky, Jackson, & Finch, 2003). With respect to hurricanes, residents in hurricane prone regions are exposed repeatedly to media cues during the hurricane season that relate to the following: Will there be a hurricane this year? If Claudio D. Ortiz, Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University; Wendy K. Silverman, Department of Psychology, Child and Family Psychosocial Research Center, Florida International University; James Jaccard, Department of Psychology, Florida International Uni- versity; and Annette M. La Greca, Department of Psychology, Univer- sity of Miami. This project was supported in part by the Terrorism and Disaster Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, a member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which is funded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Depart- ment of Health and Human Services. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Claudio D. Ortiz, Pennsylvania State University, Department of Psychology, Uni- versity Support Building 1, Room 101a, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail: cdo2@psu.edu Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy © 2011 American Psychological Association 2011, Vol. 3, No. 2, 157–164 1942-9681/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0020098 157 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.