Citation

Löfving-Gupta S, Willebrand M, Koposov R, Blatný M, Hrdlicka M, Schwab-Stone ME, Ruchkin V. Eur. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 2018; 27(4): 493-500.

Affiliation

Säter Forensic Psychiatric Clinic, 783 27, Säter, Sweden. vladislav.ruchkin@yale.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00787-017-1097-5

PMID

29264649

Abstract

The negative effects of community violence exposure on child and adolescent mental health are well documented and exposure to community violence has been linked both to a number of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Our aim was, therefore, to investigate cross-cultural and gender differences in the relationship between community violence exposure and substance abuse. A self-report survey was conducted among 10,575, 12-18 year old adolescents in three different countries, Czech Republic (N = 4537), Russia (N = 2377) and US (N = 3661). We found that in all three countries both substance use and problem behavior associated with it increased similarly along with severity of violence exposure and this association was not gender-specific. It was concluded that in spite of the differences in the levels of violence exposure and substance use cross-culturally and by gender, the pattern of their association is neither culturally nor gender bound.

Language: en

Keywords

Adolescents; Community violence exposure; Gender; Substance use