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Abstract
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The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between chronic exposure to community violence and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in a nonrandom sample (N = 221) of low-income African-American youth between 7 and 18 years old. Results showed males were more likely than females to be victims of and witnesses to violent acts; there were no other significant sociodemographic differences in the degree of exposure to violence. PTSD symptom reporting was moderately high for this sample of youth; 54 youth (27.1%) met all three of the diagnostic criteria considered. Regression analyses revealed that being victimized and witnessing violence were significantly related to the reporting of PTSD symptoms. These symptoms were more extreme among victimized females and victimized youth who had no primary males living with them in the household (i.e., fathers and/or brothers). Exposure to violence among youth is clearly significant to their reporting of PTSD symptomatology, yet the clinical implications of this relationship remain largely unexplored.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this paper by Fitzpatrick and Boldizar was to examine the relationship between exposure to community violence and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in African-American youth.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors followed a quasi-experimental cross-sectional design with a non-probability sample of 221 low-income African-American youths between the ages of 7 and 18 participating in a federally funded summer program in eight central city housing communities during July 1991. Data was collected during a 3-week period in which a questionnaire was group administered to participants at each of the eight camp sites. Investigators read each question aloud while participants followed along. Participants were instructed beforehand that their responses were confidential and were physically separated from one another and given their own space to complete the questionnaire. Two sets of dummy variables were constructed; one denoting gender and the other representing the presence of females or males in the household. Additionally the authors constructed two scales to quantify the breadth of respondents' exposure to violence; a victim scale and a witness scale. The victim scale questioned respondents about whether they were victims of specific violent acts. It had questionable reliability with a Cronbach's alpha equal to 0.55. The witness scale questioned respondents about whether they were witnesses to specific violent acts. Its reliability was low as well with a Cronbach's alpha equal to 0.65. A Purdue Post-Traumatic Stress Scale was employed as well to measure the level of PTSD in respondents and was reliable with a Cronbach's alpha equal to 0.76. Analyses included one-way ANOVA and regressions of the PTSD scale on several sociodemographic variables and the two violence exposure scales.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors began by examining descriptive statistics about this population from each of the three scales. The PTSD scale revealed that 54 of the youth (27.1%) met all of the PTSD diagnostic criteria while 68 (34.2%) met at least two. More than 70% of the youths were victims of at least one of the violent acts questioned in the victim scale. More than half (51.1%) of the respondents had been hit by a family member. The witness scale revealed that close to 85% of the respondents had witnessed at least one violent act and 43.4% had witnessed a murder. Next, a one-way analysis of variance across groups showed few statistically significant differences between mean levels of exposure to violence. The authors presented two regression equations. The first examined the additive effects of sociodemographic characteristics and exposure to violence on PTSD symptomatology. There was no significant effect from gender, age, nor primary males or females on the reporting of PTSD symptoms. The authors found that females reported more symptoms of PTSD than their male counterparts. Both violence scales were significant and suggested that as exposure to violence increases so does reporting of PTSD symptoms. The second regression equation examined the variation in PTSD symptomatology as a function of exposure to violence. Interaction between the two exposure to violence scales and the sociodemographic characteristics was tested and only two contributed significantly; presence of primary males X victimization and gender X victimization. The addition of multiplicative terms to the second equation increased the coefficient of determination by close to 5%. The first interaction term had a negative significant effect on reporting of PTSD symptoms. The second interaction term had a positive significant effect. The multiplicative terms also revealed that females might experience more severe victimization than males. Finally, the interaction terms demonstrated that the exposure to violence effect isn't consistent across all sociodemographic groups. The authors concluded by pointing out to the significant positive relationship between exposure to violence and PTSD symptomatology.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors emphasized the need to develop assessment strategies, diagnostic criteria and clinical interventions for youth who display symptoms of PTSD as a function of their exposure to violence. The difficulty of this task is compounded by the ecological conditions of everyday life of inner-city youth. Consequently, the authors suggested that community intervention is needed to assess the level of exposure to violence and its mental health consequences before clinical strategies can be effectively used and therapy regimens administered. The authors pointed to the similarity between efforts to identify learning disabilities in children and the present need to screen children for PTSD early on for effective treatment. In respect to sampling design in violence research, the authors suggested that randomness might not be an appropriate selection criteria in future studies of violence since violence does not necessarily occur randomly in many metropolitan areas.
EVALUATION:
The authors present an interesting investigation of the effect of exposure to community violence on reporting of post traumatic stress disorder symptomatology. The use of different scales of violence victimization in addition to a PTSD scale provide fairly thorough measures of the variables. The different measures are clearly explained and the results were well discussed. However, the small sample size and sampling bias limits the generalizability of the findings to the selected subgroup of African-American youths. Since a great deal of violence is concentrated in low-income African-American neighborhoods, the implications of these findings are nevertheless very important. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - 1990s
KW - Witnessing Violence Effects
KW - African American Juvenile
KW - African American Victim
KW - African American Child
KW - African American Witness
KW - Juvenile Witness
KW - Child Witness
KW - Low-Income Youth
KW - Middle Childhood
KW - Late Childhood
KW - Late Adolescence
KW - Early Adolescence
KW - Exposure to Violence
KW - Witnessing Community Violence
KW - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
KW - Psychological Victimization Effects
KW - Urban Violence
KW - Urban Youth
KW - Juvenile Victim
KW - Child Victim
Language: en |