Exposure to violence and mental health of adolescents: South African Health and Well-being Study

Abstract

BackgroundMaterial and social environmental stressors affect mental health in adolescence. Protective factors such as social support from family and friends may help to buffer the effects of adversity.AimsThe association of violence exposure and emotional disorders was examined in Cape Town adolescents.MethodA total of 1034 Grade 8 high school students participated from seven government co-educational schools in Cape Town, South Africa. Exposure to violence in the past 12 months and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were measured by the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire, depressive and anxiety symptoms by the Short Moods and Feelings Questionnaire and the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale.ResultsExposure to violence was associated with high scores on depressive (odds ratio (OR)=6.23, 95% CI 4.2–9.2), anxiety (OR=5.40, 95% CI 2.4–12.4) and PTSD symptoms (OR=8.93, 95% CI 2.9–27.2) and increased risk of self-harm (OR=5.72, 95% CI 1.2–25.9) adjusting for gender and social support.ConclusionsWe found that high exposure to violence was associated with high levels of emotional disorders in adolescents that was not buffered by social support. There is an urgent need for interventions to reduce exposure to violence in young people in this setting.Declaration of interestNone.Copyright and usage© The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license.

Relationship between childhood abuse and substance misuse problems is mediated by substance use coping motives, in school attending South African adolescents

“…South African adolescents, and the South African population in general, report high rates of childhood abuse/trauma and alcohol/drug problems (Kaminer et al, 2013a, b; Parry et al, 2004; Stansfeld et al, 2018; Stein et al, 2008; Suliman et al, 2009). Furthermore, childhood abuse/trauma is positively associated with alcohol/drug problems in these samples (Morojele et al, 2016; Saban et al, 2014; Sommer et al, 2017) raising questions as to whether this relationship is mediated by coping motives.…”

Preliminary Insights on the Acehnese Daily Stressors in Conflict Affected Area

“…Most studies found that youth living in a post conflict setting have been exposed to some kind of violence in their community (Das-Munshi et al, 2017;Fausiah, Turnip, & Hauff, 2019;Kaminer, du Plessis, Hardy, & Benjamin, 2013;McAloney, McCrystal, Percy, & McCartan, 2009). The fact the community discussed political violence in an ease manner might be a sign of the increasing sense to tolerate violence.…”

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“…These findings contrast with previous research indicating that social support fails to buffer the impact of violence exposure on adolescent mental health in high-violence contexts. [25,69] Similarly, community violence exposure was related to peer support of risky behaviour, but again only for boys, and significantly more strongly than for girls. It is possible that witnessing community violence exerts a stronger influence on boys' peer relationships than those of girls; boys who see violence may choose peers who approve of high-risk behaviour.…”

“…RESEARCH studies have been conducted with schoolbased, [24][25][26] community-based [27,28] and/or con veni ence samples [20,29] in North America, Europe and SA, and these findings may not generalise to young people seeking mental health treatment. Importantly, teens receiving mental health services may be more accessible to interventions because they are already engaged in care.…”