The Bulletin of National Defence University of Ukraine

  • Received 31.10.2025,
  • Revised 23.02.2026,
  • Accepted 30.03.2026
  • Published 16.04.2026
Download article Download article
Vol. 21, No. 2, 2026
  • media activity; anxiety; adaptation; post-traumatic stress disorder; mental health
  • https://doi.org/10.33099/2617-6858-26-21-2-129-135
  • Pages 129-135

Within the scope of this study, moral injury is defined as a concept describing psychological suffering caused not by fear for one’s own life, but by the violation of fundamental moral beliefs and expectations. For journalists, moral injury is of particular significance, as their work is consistently bound up with ethical dilemmas that admit no clear-cut resolution: whether to document suffering or render assistance, whether to publish disturbing content or prevent audience retraumatisation, whether to expose sources or safeguard their safety. For Ukrainian journalists working in conditions of full-scale war, these dilemmas take on an existential character: the dual identity of professional observer and citizen of a country under armed attack creates an additional layer of moral conflict. The aim of the article was to conduct a theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of moral injury as a construct distinct from post-traumatic stress disorder, and to establish its relevance to journalism, particularly within the context of Ukrainian wartime experience. The study employed a theoretical design grounded in systematic analysis and synthesis of peer-reviewed scholarly sources from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The classical moral injury model of B. Litz and the Toronto Moral Injury Scale for Journalists were analysed, along with empirical studies of moral injury among media professionals and longitudinal survey data from the Institute of Mass Information (2022-2025). It was established that moral injury differs fundamentally from post-traumatic stress disorder in terms of aetiology (violation of moral beliefs rather than life threat), emotional profile (guilt, shame, and anger rather than fear and hyperarousal), and formative mechanisms. Three categories of potentially morally injurious events specific to journalism were identified: the witness-helper dilemma, the truth-versus-protection conflict, and organisational betrayal. The validated Toronto Moral Injury Scale for Journalists provides the first standardised diagnostic instrument. The data demonstrated that access to psychological support is associated with lower moral injury scores

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