Injury and Psychiatric Disorder in Low-Income Women Experiencing Bidirectional Intimate Partner Violence.

This study compared severity of physical violence, intimate partner violence (IPV)-related injury, and lifetime diagnoses of psychiatric disorders among women in relationships with bidirectional, unidirectional, or no IPV. The sample includes 763 low-income women from community-based family planning clinics. Results showed that women in relationships with bidirectional IPV were more likely to experience severe physical violence and severe IPV-related injury compared to women in the unidirectional IPV category. These women were also more likely to be diagnosed with drug abuse and depression than women in relationships without IPV. Similarly, women in the bidirectional IPV category were more likely to be diagnosed with drug abuse when compared to women in the victim-only unidirectional IPV category. Recommendations for health-care providers are discussed.

Do adolescent drug users fare the worst? Onset type, juvenile delinquency, and criminal careers.

Although substance abuse often accompanies delinquency and other forms of antisocial behavior, there is less scholarly agreement about the timing of substance use vis-à-vis an individual's antisocial trajectory. Similarly, although there is extraordinary evidence that onset is inversely related to the severity of the criminal career, there is surprisingly little research on the offense type of onset or the type of antisocial behavior that was displayed when an individual initiated his or her offending career. Drawing on data from a sample of serious adult criminal offenders (N = 500), the current study examined 12 forms of juvenile delinquency (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, auto theft, arson, weapons, sexual offense, drug sales, and drug use) in addition to age at arrest onset, age, sex, race to explore their association with chronicity (total arrests), extreme chronicity (1 SD above the mean which was equivalent to 90 career arrests), and lambda (offending per year). The only onset offense type that was significantly associated with all criminal career outcomes was juvenile drug use. Additional research on the offense type of delinquent onset is needed to understand launching points of serious antisocial careers.

Alcohol use as a potential mediator of forced sexual intercourse and suicidality among African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic high school girls.

PURPOSE: Sexual assault on adolescent females is a major public health concern. The purposes of this study were to examine: (1) whether alcohol use mediates the relationship between forced sexual intercourse and suicidality in high-school girls, and (2) whether this mediation differs by ethnicity. METHODS: Using cross-sectional data from the 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (n = 6,294), we used logistic regression and simple mediation using the Sobel test for indirect effect for our analyses. RESULTS: Overall rates for forced sexual intercourse, alcohol use, and suicidality were 10.9%, 56.6%, and 18%, respectively. Current alcohol use significantly mediated the relationship between forced sexual intercourse and suicidality in African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic high-school girls. Overall, 13% of variance in participants' suicidality can be accounted for by the indirect effect of forced sexual intercourse on suicidality through alcohol use. The amount of variance accounted for by alcohol use varied significantly by ethnicity, with the largest amount of variance (21%) accounted for suicidality in Hispanic girls. CONCLUSION: In addition to its acute affects, alcohol use may serve as a general risk factor for suicidality in girls who have experienced forced sexual intercourse. Intervention programs targeting female adolescent sexual assault victims should include an alcohol use component.

Forced sexual intercourse, suicidality, and binge drinking among adolescent girls.

Although sexual assault victimization has been shown to predict suicidality, little is known about the mechanisms linking these two factors. Using cross-sectional data (N=6364) from the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, binge drinking significantly mediated the relationship between forced sexual intercourse and suicide for Hispanic (n=1915) and Caucasian (n=2928) adolescent females, but not for African American adolescent females (n=1521). Results suggest the need for closer monitoring of adolescent victims of sexual assault who also abuse alcohol to intervene in early suicide behaviors. Treatment and intervention programs should also be culturally sensitive to account for differences in reaction to sexual trauma among race/ethnicity. Implications for suicide prevention and alcohol intervention strategies as well as suggestions to clinical providers are discussed.