Violence Exposure and Mental Health Among Adolescents: The Role of Ethnic Identity and Help Seeking

Recent studies have documented the high prevalence of violence exposure among urban youth, and the association between violence exposure and mental health symptomology (Copeland-Linder, Lambert, & Ialongo, 2010; Mendelson, Turner, & Tandon, 2010). Less attention has been directed to violence exposure across diverse groups and the role of protective factors in the face of violence exposure. The present study extends this research by investigating the relationship between violence exposure in different contexts (home/community and school) and mental health among adolescents of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds in an urban area. The potential role of ethnic identity and help seeking in buffering against the negative effects of violence exposure on mental health was also examined. We studied 522 ninth-and tenth-grade students from an urban high school who completed measures of exposure to violence; symptoms of posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety; ethnic identity; and help seeking in the context of violence exposure. Results indicated a positive association between exposure to violence and symptoms of posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety across racial groups. There were mixed findings concerning the buffering role of ethnic identity with variations across subgroups of adolescents. Help seeking was found to moderate the relationship between violence exposure at home/community and posttraumatic stress symptoms. The implications of these findings for research and intervention with adolescents are discussed.