Adolescent Exposure to Violence and Adult Anxiety, Depression, and PTSD

• Author: Robert J. Franzese,Leah McCoy Grubb,Herbert C. Covey,Scott Menard
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016817721294
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Adolescent Exposure to

Violence and Adult Anxiety,

Depression, and PTSD

Herbert C. Covey

1

, Leah McCoy Grubb

2

,

Robert J. Franzese

3

, and Scott Menard

4

Abstract

The present study investigates how adolescent exposure to violence (AEV), in the form of parental

physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, and exposure to violence in the neighborhood, is

related to adult anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, controlling for more

general adolescent violent victimization and for self-reports and parent reports of mental health

problems in adolescence, on a national household-based probability sample of individuals who were

adolescents in the mid-1970s and who were followed through early adulthood in the early 2000s.

The results suggest that AEV is associated with mental health problems in adolescence but not,

controlling for other variables, in adulthood, but there is continuity in mental health problems

associated with AEV from adolescence to adulthood.

Keywords

adolescent exposure to violence, physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, neighborhood

violence, adult mental health

There is an extensive literature (Acosta, Albus, Reynolds, Spriggs, & Weist, 2001; Buka, Stichick,

Birdthistle, & Earls, 2001; Gewirtz & Edleson, 2007; Kendall-Tackett, 2013; Lynch, 2003; Ruback

& Thompson, 2001; Widom, 2014) on the relationship of childhood and adolescent exposure to

violence (AEV) with subsequent menta l health problems, including but not limi ted to anxiety,

depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A linkage from childhood and AEV and

later mental health problems is explicitly suggested by a combination of the strain theories of Merton

(1938) and Agnew (2006). According to Merton’s anomie theory, the experience of strain, in the

form of a disjunction between culturally approved goals and one’s ability or opportunity to achieve

those goals using societally approved means, may lead to a variety of negative adaptations to reduce

1

Adams County Department of Human Services, Commerce City, CO, USA

2

Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA

3

Rockhurst University, Kansas City, MO, USA

4

Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

Corresponding Author:

Scott Menard, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.

Email: Scott.Menard@Colorado.edu

Criminal Justice Review

2020, Vol. 45(2) 185-201

ª2017 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/0734016817721294

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that strain. Those adaptations range from what Merton termed ritualism, abandoning the goals but

continuing to engage in conforming behavior, to innovation, which includes predatory criminal

behavior such as theft, to retreatism, which includes substance abuse and mental health problems.

It is this last type of adaptation with which we are concerned in the present article.

Merton’s theory focused specifically on economic strain, but Agnew proposed a general strain

theory that extends strain theory (1) by including noneconomic as well as economic strains and (2)

by including not only (a) the disjunction between goals and the means to achieve them but also (b)

removal of positively valued stimuli and (c) exposure to negative or noxious stimuli as sources of

strain. This last category, exposure to negative or noxious stimuli, would include exposure to

violence in the home or neighborhood. Thus, based on Agnew’s general strain theory as an extension

of Merton’s anomie theory, we would expect that exposure to noxious stimuli, in this case exposure

to violence, may lead to a variety of adaptations, one of which is the experience of mental health

problems. In this context, the expectation would be that the strain of exposure to violence would

most likely result in trauma-linked mental health symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

While strain theory forms the primary theoretical basis for the present research, there are other

theoretical perspectives that also suggest a link between AEV and adult mental health problems. A

theoretical linkage between AEV and adult anxiety, depression, and PTSD is implied in the literature

on the neurobiology of the impact of traumatic events on brain functioning. Anda et al. (2006) and

Perry (2001) concluded that the impact of traumatic events and experiences, such as exposure to

violence, on brainfunctioning leads to increasedrisk for anxiety, depression,PTSD, and other adverse

mental health outcomes, such as higher levels of anxiety (Weems et al., 2013). Adverse childhood

experiences(ACEs), such as exposure to violence,also have been found to have negativeeffects on the

development of brain function (Anda, Butchart, Felitti, & Brown, 2010; Teicher et al., 2003). In

addition, some studies have found that traumatized individuals with PTSD were more likely to have

structural abnormalities in regions of their brains (Carrion, Weems, & Reiss, 2007; Karl et al., 2006;

Weems, Klabunde, Russell, & Carrion, 2015). However, other studies have found no structural

differences among posttraumatic children in other regions of the brain (hippocampus; Woon &

Dawson, 2008). In many of these studies, age appears to be an intervening variable with younger

differing from older youth. The additive effects of multiple exposure to adverse experiences, such as

exposure to violence, are also implicated in the prevalence of long-term criminal behaviors (Baglivio

& Epps, 2015; Baglivio et al., 2014;Baglivio, Wolff, Epps, & Nelson,2015; Caspi et al., 2002). Taken

together, these studies suggest that, in addition to strain theory, research on neurobiology,heterotypic

continuity, and the relationship of exposure to violence with behavioral trajectories would lead us to

expect a positive relationship between AEV and adult mental health problems.

Past research on the relationship of AEV with later mental health problems has produced mixed

results (Menard, 2002; Ruback & Thompson, 2001) and also has indicated that different forms of

exposure to violence may be linked to different symptomatic outcomes, with anxiety and depression

more closely associated with physicalabuse and witnessing violence,and PTSD apparently associated

more with neighborhood violence andto a lesser extent (at least in the long term) with physical abuse

(Dunn, Gilman, Willett, Slopen, & Molnar,2012; Gewirtz & Edleson, 2007; Gorman-Smith & Tolan,

1998; Luster, Small, & Lower, 2002; Mrug & Windle, 2010; Scarpa, 2001; Tajima, 2004; Vrana &

Lauterbach, 1994; Widom, 2014). Past research also suggests that there are gender differences in

response, with females more likely than males to retreat and dissociate and males more likely to

become more aroused and engage in externalizing behaviors (Anda et al., 2006; Perry, 2001).

Much of this research has focused on childhood rather than adolescence (or no clear distinction is

made between childhood and adolescence; see Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt, & Kenny, 2003; Menard,

Weiss, Franzese, & Covey, 2014), using small, cross-sectional (Gewirtz & Edleson, 2007; Kitzmann

et al., 2003; Widom, 2014) samples of clinical or otherwise unrepresentative respondents, often

involving individuals who had experienced exposure to violence with no comparison or control

186 Criminal Justice Review 45(2)