Interpersonal violence and posttraumatic symptomatology - The effects of ethnicity, gender, and exposure to violent events

A sample of 222 African American, Mexican American, or European American un dergraduate students completed questionnaires assessing lifetime exposure t o interpersonal violence and current levels of psychological distress. The frequency of interpersonal violence was high: 39.2% of the students reporte d direct exposure to at least one violent, nonsexual life event and 43.7% r eported at least one violent sexual experience. Fourteen percent of the par ticipants had lifetime diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder with the highest reported rate occurring for the African Americans, who also report ed more violent sexual and nonsexual experiences and higher levels of psych ological distress. Women reported more direct sexual experiences whereas me n reported more nonsexual violent events. Covariance analyses suggested tha t degree of exposure to violence explained most, but not all of the ethnic and gender differences found in terms of posttraumatic symptomatology. Thus , exposure to life-threatening events, rather than ethnic or gender group p er se was most directly related to psychological distress.