ABSTRACT

Objective: To examine whether at-risk male youth experience increases in anxiety, depressive symptoms, and aggression during years when they are exposed to gun violence, adjusting for relevant covariates.

Method: Participants were 1,216 male, justice-involved adolescents who were recently arrested for the first time for a moderate offense. They were interviewed 9 times over 5 years. Fixed effects (within-individual) regression models were used to estimate concurrent associations between exposure to gun violence and three outcomes: depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and aggression (both overall and separately for proactive and reactive aggression). The reverse direction (anxiety, depressive symptoms, and aggression predicting gun violence exposure) was also modeled.

Results: After controlling for covariates, exposure to gun violence was significantly associated with increases in reactive aggression and, to a lesser extent, increases in proactive aggression. In addition, gun violence exposure was associated with increased anxiety but not depressive symptoms. We found no support for the reverse direction.

Conclusions: At-risk males experienced significant increases in anxiety and aggression (particularly reactive aggression) during years when they are exposed to gun violence, even after accounting for several potential confounding factors. The greater impact on reactive aggression suggests that exposure to gun violence may affect self-regulation and/or social information processing. The analyses shed light on the less-visible damage wrought by gun violence and underscore the importance of mental health screening and treatment for youth who have been exposed to violence – especially gun violence – both to assist individual youths and to disrupt cycles of violence.

摘要

目的：检查有风险的男性青年在暴露于枪支暴力的岁月中是否会增加焦虑、抑郁症状和攻击性，并调整相关协变量。

方法：参与者是 1,216 名男性，涉及正义的青少年，他们最近因轻度犯罪而首次被捕。他们在 5 年内接受了 9 次采访。固定效应（个体内）回归模型用于估计暴露于枪支暴力与三种结果之间的并发关联：抑郁症状、焦虑症状和攻击性（针对主动和被动攻击的总体和分别）。反方向（焦虑、抑郁症状和攻击性预测枪支暴力暴露）也被建模。

结果：控制协变量后，暴露于枪支暴力与反应性攻击的增加显着相关，并且在较小程度上与主动攻击的增加相关。此外，枪支暴力暴露与焦虑增加有关，但与抑郁症状无关。我们发现没有支持相反的方向。

结论：即使在考虑了几个潜在的混杂因素之后，处于危险中的男性在暴露于枪支暴力的岁月里，他们的焦虑和攻击性（特别是反应性攻击性）显着增加。对反应性攻击的更大影响表明，接触枪支暴力可能会影响自我调节和/或社会信息处理。分析揭示了枪支暴力造成的不太明显的损害，并强调了对遭受暴力（尤其是枪支暴力）的青少年进行心理健康检查和治疗的重要性，这既可以帮助个别青少年，也可以破坏暴力循环。