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From Violence Exposure to Development of Sexual Risk in Low-Income Urban Girls: The Role of Psychopathology

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Abstract

This longitudinal study examined psychopathology as an explanatory mechanism linking childhood violence exposure (CVE) to sexual risk in 177 African American girls recruited from mental health clinics serving low-income communities in Chicago. Beginning at average age 14, girls completed five interviews over 2 years and a sixth assessment including trauma history. CVE reflected sexual, physical, or witnessed violence before age 12. Latent growth modeling accounted for developmental change across the six time points. Externalizing, but not internalizing, symptoms mediated the pathway from CVE to number of partners (indirect effect = .16, 95 % CIBCBS = .04–.29) and inconsistent condom use (indirect effect = .11, CIBCBS = .004–.21). Externalizing problems associated with CVE may help to explain its relationship with sexual risk in low-income, treatment-seeking African American girls. Behavioral interventions addressing aggression, impulsivity, and general risk-taking may be most effective in reducing sexual risk in this population.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Health and Human Development (R03MH086361; R01MH065155; R01HD067511). We thank the mothers and daughters who participated in the study and gratefully acknowledge the administrators and clinical staff at the outpatient mental health clinics who identified eligible families. We also thank Gloria Coleman, the study recruiter at UIC, and for their invaluable assistance in conducting interviews and entering data, graduate students at RFUMS Bola Animashaun, Tiffany Brakefield, Neha Darji, and Mary Beth Tull, and an undergraduate intern, Paige Saltzberg. These data reflect self-reported behaviors that place girls at risk for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, and may not represent girls’ willingness to engage in the behavior.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, 401 Quarry Road, Stanford, CA, 94305-5718, USA

    Helen W. Wilson

  2. Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (RFUMS), North Chicago, IL, USA

    Laura Pettineo

  3. Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL, USA

    Alexus Edmonds

  4. PGSP-Stanford Psy.D. Consortium, Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Elizabeth A. Goodman

  5. Institute for Juvenile Research (IJR) and Community Outreach Intervention Projects (COIP), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Chicago, IL, USA

    Erin Emerson & Geri R. Donenberg

Authors
  1. Helen W. Wilson
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  2. Laura Pettineo
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  3. Alexus Edmonds
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  4. Elizabeth A. Goodman
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  5. Erin Emerson
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  6. Geri R. Donenberg
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Correspondence to Helen W. Wilson.

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Wilson, H.W., Pettineo, L., Edmonds, A. et al. From Violence Exposure to Development of Sexual Risk in Low-Income Urban Girls: The Role of Psychopathology. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 46, 270–280 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-014-0466-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-014-0466-2

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