Social support and the relationship between family and community violence exposure and psychopathology among high risk adolescents

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to examine the protective effect of social support in the relationship between exposure to violence and psychopathology. Exposure to violence in the family and exposure to violence in the community were examined separately. Exposure to violence was further divided according to whether violence was experienced as a victim or as a witness. Internalizing and externalizing forms of psychopathology, as well as post-traumatic stress symptomatology were examined. METHOD: Participants consisted of 65 high-risk adolescents admitted consecutively to psychiatric inpatient units. Data were collected by means of individual interviews, self-report questionnaires, and hospital charts. RESULTS: Social support emerged as a protective factor with respect to the maladaptive effects of family violence, experienced as either a victim or as a witness. In contrast, social support did not appear to buffer the maladaptive effects of community violence, regardless of whether violence was experienced as a victim or as a witness. In fact, the relationship between community violence and psychopathology was found to be generally nonsignificant regardless of social support status. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that exposure to family violence may affect development differently than exposure to community violence, allowing social support to effectively buffer the effects of family, but not community violence. This finding highlights the importance of examining violence exposure that occurs within the family separately from violence exposure that occurs within the community.