Exposure to Violence (ETV) - Subject Release
This measure appears in the following time-points: Release.
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 exposure to violent events. In the release interview, items from the ETV document the types of violence the adolescent experienced during an institutional stay. These include incidents that are experienced (i.e., Victim - 7 items, e.g., "How often at X have you been chased where you thought you might be seriously hurt?") and/or observed (i.e., Witnessed - 7 items, e.g., "How often at X have you seen another resident being raped, attempted rape, or any other type of sexual attack?"), as well as self-reported acts (i.e., Self-report - 7 items, e.g., "How often at X have you attacked another resident with a weapon like a knife, box cutter, bat, chain, or broken bottle?"). Two additional questions inquire about whether the youth has attempted or has witnessed another resident attempt suicide during their stay.
The ETV was found to have adequate internal consistency at the baseline time-point. A multidimensional two-factor CFA model where certain measurement errors were allowed to covary was fit to the baseline data. The values generated from this analysis can be found the subject baseline codebook section.
The following summary scores regarding violence exposure during their stay in the institution are available, with higher scores indicating a greater exposure to violence:
- Exposure to Violence: Witnessed violence - resident to resident [r0vicwkk]; count of 7 items
- Exposure to Violence: Witnessed violence - staff to resident [r0vicwsk]; count of 7 items.
- Exposure to Violence: Victim violence - resident to subject [r0vicvky]; count of 7 items.
- Exposure to Violence: Victim violence - staff to subject [r0vicvsy]; count of 7 items.
- Exposure to Violence: Self-report violence - subject to resident [r0vicsyk]; count of 7 items.
- Exposure to Violence: Self-report violence - subject to staff [r0vicsys]; count of 7 items.
- Exposure to Violence: Total witnessed score [r0vicwtot]; sum of the resident/resident and staff/resident scores.
- Exposure to Violence: Total victim score [r0vicvtot]; sum of the resident/subject and staff/subject scores.
- Exposure to Violence: Total self-report score [r0vicstot]; sum of the subject/resident and subject/staff scores.
Two individual items are also available:
- How often see another resident commit or attempt suicide while at the program [R0VictE_VicK0]
- How often did the subject attempt suicide while at the program [R0VictE_VicY0]
Two of the subscales in this measure ("total violence score - witnessed" and "total violence score - victim") were used in the development of the eight dimensions of organizational functioning. A full description of the dimensions can be found in the "Dimensions of Organizational Functioning" codebook section.
Data Issues
- Beginning with version 01.19 of the interview, five of the seven items used in the summary scores were skipped if the release interview was conducted on a federal facility (rape, attacks with a weapon, stealing things, taking things by force, and destroy/damage property). For these cases (N=2), all counts will be based on a maximum of two items (chased someone, beat up) instead of seven.
References
- Selner-Ohagan, M., Kindlon, D., Buka, S., Raudenbush, S., and Earls, F. (1998). Assessing exposure to violence in urban youth. Journal of child Psychology and Psychiatry and allied Disciplines, 39(2), 215-224.