COMPARATIVE DISTRESS LEVELS OF INNER-CITY FAMILY MEMBERS OF HOMICIDE VICTIMS

This study investigated the distress levels of 150 family members of h omicide victims, as well as how pre-event, peri-event, and postevent v ariables were related to distress. Distress levels were very high, wit h 26% of the sample reporting clinical distress. Because it was not po ssible to say if this distress resulted from the homicide itself or fr om the fact that people who lose family members to homicide generally have lives rooted in stressful contexts, we compared the homicide samp le to two sociodemographically comparable groups of 108 other trauma v ictims and 119 nonvictims selected from a larger epidemiological datas et. Homicide survivors were significantly more distressed than either group, suggesting that loss of a family member to homicide has definit e clinical implications. Although event-related variables were somewha t predictive of distress, pre-event and postevent variables selected f or this study had greater predictive utility.