Post-traumatic stress disorder after watching violent scenes on television

Introduction Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an intense, prolonged and sometimes delayed reaction to extremely stressful events such as natural disasters or man-made calamities, characterised by persistent hyperarousal, reexperiencing of images of the stressful event and avoid­ ance of reminders (1). The disorder can become chronic and disabling with delay in treatment (2). PTSD can also be brought on in children, by viewing stressful scenes on television (3). Here we report two such cases.