Descriptive Epidemiology of Chronic Childhood Adversity in Mexican Adolescents
Received 22 October 2008; accepted 4 March 2009. published online 03 June 2009.
Abstract
Purpose
To estimate the prevalence of adversity (neglect and abuse, parental loss, parental psychopathology, economic adversity, and serious physical illness), the interrelatedness of adversities, and their socio-demographic correlates.
Methods
This is a multistage probability survey of 3005 adolescents aged 12–17 years residing in Mexico City. Youth were administered the computer-assisted adolescent version of the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview in their homes. The childhood and posttraumatic stress disorder sections provided information regarding adversity. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were performed considering the multistage and weighted sample design.
Results
A total of 68% of adolescents have experienced at least one type of chronic childhood adversity, whereas almost 7% have experienced four of more. The most frequent adversity is economic adversity followed by witnessing domestic violence. Boys experience more neglect than girls, and girls experience more sexual abuse than boys. Family dysfunction adversities tend to clump together such that youth exposed to abuse of any form also report witnessing domestic violence and parental mental pathology. Youth whose parents have divorced are likely to experience economic adversity. Parental death is independent of experiencing other childhood adversities. Older adolescents, school drop-outs, those with young mothers, those with more siblings, and those whose parents have less education are more likely to experience adversity.
Conclusions
Although most adolescents have experienced some adversity, a small group is exposed to many adversities. Understanding the distribution of adversities may help us to identify at-risk youth and to better interpret the findings from studies on the role of adversity in diverse health outcomes.
aNational Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente, Division of Epidemiological and Psychosocial Research, Mexico City, Mexico
bNational Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente, Division of Clinical Research, Mexico City, Mexico
cInstitute for Applied Mathematical and Systems Research (IMAS), National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico
Address correspondence to: Corina Benjet, Ph.D., National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente, Calzada México Xochimilco 101, Colonia San Lorenzo Huipulco, Mexico D.F. 14370 Mexico.
ABSTRACT