Exposure to violence, depression, and hostility in a sample of inner city high school youth

This study examines the prevalence of violence in a non-randomly selected p opulation of 337 inner city school students, the relationship between expos ure to violence and symptoms of depression and hostility, and demographic d ifferences in exposure to and effects of traumatic violence. Students respo nded to an anonymous survey asking them to enumerate how many times they ha d experienced each of six types of traumatic violence. Sixty-two per cent o f students were exposed to an average of 3.41 of the six types of violence listed. Exposure to most types of violence were highly intercorrelated. Mal es experienced more exposure to violence than females. Exposure to violence was predictive of hostility for both gender groups, and predictive of depr ession for females. Implications of exposure to traumatic violence on adole scent development are discussed. (C) 1999 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.