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Behavioral Profiles of Youth Who have Experienced Victimization

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Abstract

Victimization has been associated with increased depression, anxiety, anger, and delinquency; yet, research on adolescent victimization has largely relied on variable-centered approaches to examine associations with singular outcomes. With secondary data from the Developmental Victimization Survey, we utilized latent profile analysis to identify subgroups of youth, ages 12–17, based on clusters of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. We also examined how the behavioral outcome clusters were associated with different forms of victimization. Four behavioral subscales were included within the latent profile analysis and a four-class model had the best fit. Youth in Class 3 (high depression, anxiety, anger, and delinquency) were significantly more likely to have experienced peer/sibling victimization and to have experienced indirect victimization than youth in Class 2 (high depression, anxiety, and anger). The study findings indicate that certain types of victimization have greater consequences on mental health and that the unique clustering of symptoms is at least partially accounted for by the types of victimization experienced.

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Author Contributions

L.M.R.: designed the study and assisted with data analyses, interpretation of results, writing the paper and editing the final manuscript. S.B.S.: assisted with writing the paper and editing the final manuscript. S.D.W.: analyzed the data, assisted with interpretation of results, wrote part of the results, and collaborated in editing the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Lynette M. Renner

  2. College of Social Work, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Shamra Boel-Studt

  3. Department of Educational, School & Counseling Psychology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Stephen D. Whitney

Authors
  1. Lynette M. Renner
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  2. Shamra Boel-Studt
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  3. Stephen D. Whitney
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Correspondence to Lynette M. Renner.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Minnesota IRB and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the original study. Informed consent was not obtained for this secondary analysis.

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Renner, L.M., Boel-Studt, S. & Whitney, S.D. Behavioral Profiles of Youth Who have Experienced Victimization. J Child Fam Stud 27, 1692–1700 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-1008-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-1008-x

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