Psychological Content of "Journalist Mental Health" Concept in the Professional Activity Context

Abstract

The article substantiates the concept psychological content of "a journalist mental health" as an independent scientific construct. The relevance stems from this concept formal definition absence in psychological science, despite more than two decades of empirical research documenting elevated PTSD, depression, and burnout among media professionals. The situation of Ukrainian journalists during Russia’s full-scale war has transformed this academic gap into an urgent applied problem: the most extensive wartime dataset globally reveals simultaneous deterioration and adaptation within the same population. The purpose of the study is to integrate general psychological models of mental health with the journalistic activity specifics to construct a profession-specific framework. The methodology encompasses analysis of five general models (WHO, Keyes, Ryff, Seligman, Lukat) and two occupational frameworks (JD-R, ProQOL), followed by comparative analysis with empirically documented features of journalistic work. The results demonstrate that six characteristics of journalism — chronic traumatic exposure as a professional requirement, dual-role oscillation, wartime civic-existential duality, information warfare burden, impossibility of rotation, and organizational silence — render existing models necessary but insufficient. An original definition is proposed: journalist mental health is a two-dimensional dynamic state operating across four levels — individual, professional, organizational, and structural. The model integrates Keyes’ dual-continuum framework, Stamm’s ProQOL, Ryff’s eudaimonic dimensions, and Naidonova’s reflexive approach. Verification against IMI longitudinal data (2022–2025) confirms the model’s capacity to account for both destructive and adaptive trends. Prospects include empirical testing using ProQOL, PMH-Scale, and CD-RISC on a sample of Ukrainian journalists.