Violence Exposure, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Depressive Symptoms Among Recent Immigrant Schoolchildren

doi:10.1097/00004583-200209000-00011

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Volume 41, Issue 9, September 2002, Pages 1104-1110

https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-200209000-00011 Get rights and content

ABSTRACT

Objective

Many recent immigrant children are at risk for violence exposure and related psychological distress resulting from experiences before, during, and after immigration. This study examines the rates of violence exposure and associated symptoms among recent immigrant children in Los Angeles.

Method

1,004 recent immigrant schoolchildren (aged 8–15 years) were surveyed about their prior exposure to violence and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Participants included children whose native language was Spanish, Korean, Russian, or Western Armenian.

Results

Participants reported high levels of violence exposure, both personal victimization and witnessing violence, in the previous year and in their lifetimes. Thirty-two percent of children reported PTSD symptoms in the clinical range, and 16% reported depressive symptoms in the clinical range. Although boys and older children were more likely to have experienced violence, girls reported more PTSD and depressive symptoms. Linear multiple regressions revealed that PTSD symptoms were predicted by both recent and lifetime violence exposure (p values < .001 and p < .05, respectively), when depressive symptoms and gender were controlled. On the other hand, depressive symptoms were predicted by recent victimization only (p < .001) when PTSD and gender were controlled.

Conclusion

These findings document the need for interventions addressing the psychological sequelae of violence exposure in immigrant children.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were third- to eighth-grade children who were eligible for the MHIP intervention study by virtue of the following factors: (1) each child was enrolled at an elementary school or middle school participating in the MHIP program; (2) each child was from a family whose native language was Spanish, Korean, Western Armenian, or Russian; (3) each child had immigrated to the United States within the previous 3 years; and (4) each child's parents gave permission via the passive consent

Violence Exposure

Recent immigrant children reported high levels of violence exposure over the previous year and in their lifetimes before the previous year (Table 1). On average, children reported experiencing direct exposure to 1.2 violent events in the previous year, and they reported witnessing about three such events. Prior lifetime exposure to violence in the time before the previous year was lower, with reports averaging 0.6 events experienced and 1.2 events witnessed during that period. Only 122 children

DISCUSSION

These findings are the first to empirically document high rates of violence exposure and mental health symptoms in a population of recent child immigrants to the United States. The children reported substantial exposure to violent events, both in the recent past and in their lifetimes, and this exposure is highly correlated with the presence of distress symptoms. Previous research has documented that refugees have high rates of posttraumatic stress symptoms (Arroyo and Eth, 1985;Guarnaccia and

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: This work was supported by the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Emergency Immigrant Education Program, the UCLA Center for Health Services Research, the NIMH Faculty Scholars Program, and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program. The authors thank Ken Wells, Bonnie Zima, and Audrey Burnam for their consultation, and the clinical social workers, children, and families who made this study possible.

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Violence Exposure, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Depressive Symptoms Among Recent Immigrant Schoolchildren

ABSTRACT

Objective

Method

Results

Conclusion

Section snippets

Participants

Violence Exposure

DISCUSSION

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

Clin Psychol Rev

Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am

Immigrant children and families

Children traumatized by Central American Warfare

Community violence and children on Chicago's southside

Psychiatry

The impact of exposure to crime and violence on urban youth

Am J Orthopsychiatry

Exposure to violence and posttraumatic stress disorder in urban adolescents

Adolescence

Age Patterns of Victims of Serious Violent Crime

Homicide Trends in the United States: 1998 Update

Violent death and injury in US children and adolescents

Am J Dis Child

Community level factors and child maltreatment rates

Child Dev

Children's Depression Inventory: reliability over repeated administrations

J Clin Child Psychol

Children as victims of violence: a national survey

Pediatrics

Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight

The validation of a self-report measure of posttraumatic stress disorder: the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale

Psychol Assess

The Child PTSD Symptom Scale: a preliminary examination of its psychometric properties

J Clin Child Psychol

The American war zone: what children can tell us about living with violence

J Dev Behav Pediatr

Report on the California Southeast Asian Mental Health Needs Assessment