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 undergraduate students completed questionnaires assessing lifetime exposure to interpersonal violence and current levels of psychological distress. The frequency of interpersonal violence was high: 39.2% of the students reported direct exposure to at least one violent, nonsexual life event and 43.7% reported at least one violent sexual experience. Fourteen percent of the participants had lifetime diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder with the highest reported rate occurring for the African Americans, who also reported more violent sexual and nonsexual experiences and higher levels of psychological distress. Women reported more direct sexual experiences whereas men reported more nonsexual violent events. Covariance analyses suggested that 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 per se was most directly related to psychological distress.