Exposure to community violence and posttraumatic stress symptomatology among diverse, urban adolescents.
Item
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Title
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Exposure to community violence and posttraumatic stress symptomatology among diverse, urban adolescents.
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Identifier
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AAI3310601
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identifier
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3310601
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Creator
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Urciuoli, Jannette Alejandra.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Beth Rosenthal
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Social Work | Psychology, Clinical
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Abstract
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Prevalence rates indicate that those most likely to be exposed to community violence are older adolescents. However, few studies exist comprising samples of culturally diverse older adolescents. The relationship between exposure to community violence and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) among a diverse sample of older adolescents was investigated in this study.;The theoretical framework chosen to explain the connection between exposure to community violence and PTSS was the combination of two theories, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and schema theory. PTSD theory provides a descriptive theory and schema theory provides an explanatory theory on how these variables connect. Neither theory was tested in this dissertation.;A quasi-experimental research design was conducted on a sample of 429 research participants (via secondary data). Six hypotheses were tested; the overarching hypothesis is as follows: Among older diverse adolescents, the higher the level of total exposure to community violence the higher the level of PTSS.;Several statistical tests were conducted (e.g. t-tests, F-tests, multiple regression), confirming most of the hypotheses. The overarching hypothesis was confirmed, demonstrating that the relationship between total exposure to community violence and PTSS is statistically significant among diverse older adolescents. This relationship also remains the same for both males and females alike; among Whites, African Americans, Latinos and Asians; and when controlling for two potentially contaminating variables (i.e., gender and race/ethnicity). The independent and overlapping relationships between PTSS and total exposure to community violence were also statistically significant. Lastly, a multiple correlation between PTSS and these four variables, victimization by community violence, witnessing of community violence, gender, and race/ethnicity, is substantially larger than any bivariate relationship between PTSS and any one of the antecedent variables. Implications for social work practice, social work policy, and social work education are discussed.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
