Home > Codebook > Measures > Exposure to Violence (ETV) - Collateral Follow-up

Exposure to Violence (ETV) - Collateral Follow-up

This measure appears in the following time-points: Collat12, Collat24, Collat36.

Related Construct

Description of Measure

The Exposure to Violence Inventory (ETV; Selner-O'Hagan, Kindlon, Buka, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1998) was modified for this study to assess the frequency of the adolescent's exposure to violent events, based on collateral report. Items from the ETV examine violence the adolescent has both experienced (i.e., Victim: 6 items, e.g., Has the subject ever been chased where he/she thought he/she might be seriously hurt?) and observed (i.e., Witnessed: 7 items, e.g., Has the subject ever seen someone else being raped, an attempt made to rape someone or any other type of sexual attack?). In addition to these items, three are questions which inquire about the youth's exposure to death (e.g. has anyone close to X tried to kill him/her self, has anyone close to X died, Has the subject ever found a dead body). Finally, one open-ended item assesses involvement in other types of situations which could have lead to death or serious injury. In total, this scale inquires about 16 types of situations. If an item is endorsed, a series of follow-up questions are asked. For most items (all of the "victim" and "witness" items with the exception of rape), the follow-up questions are limited to the frequency and recency of the event. If the collateral reports that the subject was raped, more detail is obtained (e.g. relationship of perpetrator, location, age first experienced). Specifically, five additional questions are asked (i.e. has it happened more than once, relationship of perpetrator, location of incident, location if other, and age this first happened).

Three scores are computed:

Higher scores on the ETV indicate a greater exposure to violence.

The computerized interview generates 6 additional SPSS variables for each of these questions (i.e. has it happened more than once, when was the last time, relationship of perpetrator, location of incident, location if other and age at first incident). However, there are no data present for these variables unless they are related to the rape question.

References