Citation

McCart MR, Smith DW, Saunders BE, Kilpatrick DG, Resnick HS, Ruggiero KJ. Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 2007; 77(3): 434-442.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, US. mccartm@musc.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, American Orthopsychiatric Association, Publisher Wiley Blackwell)

DOI

10.1037/0002-9432.77.3.434

PMID

17696672

Abstract

This study explored whether the response of urban adolescents to community violence exposure differs from their response to family violence and sexual assault. More specifically, the authors explored whether desensitization to community violence exposure was more common compared with desensitization to other violence-related stressors. Participants included 1,245 urban adolescents drawn from a national probability sample of 4,023 youth (aged 12-17 years) who were interviewed about their history of interpersonal violence exposure, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and delinquency. A negative curvilinear effect of community violence exposure on PTSD combined with a positive linear effect of exposure on delinquency was considered evidence for desensitization. Results provided minimal support for the desensitization hypothesis and revealed increasing levels of PTSD symptoms and delinquent behaviors among boys and girls exposed to higher levels of all three violence types.

Language: en