Childhood Victimization, Poly-Victimization, and Psychological Distress in College-Aged Males  2014 symposium presentation by: Rachel Turk, Brianna Pomeroy, Brittany Nipper, Marco Pomposini and Lora Wagner RU Advisor:  Dr. Ann Elliott
Abstract.   This correlational study examines the relationships among poly-victimization (i.e., high cumulative levels of victimization), six aggregate categories of childhood victimization (property crime, physical assault, peer/sibling, witnessed/indirect, sexual, child maltreatment), and psychological distress in 153 male undergraduate students attending a southeastern U.S. university. Using hierarchical regression, the first question addressed in this study concerns the relative contributions of poly-victimization and individual categories of childhood victimization in predicting psychological distress, as measured by the Symptom-Checklist-90-revised and the Trauma Symptom Inventory-2. Second, the study examines whether poly-victimization contributes any significant variance, beyond that accounted for by the combination of all six aggregate categories. Preliminary regression analyses revealed that a) poly-victimization accounts for a significant proportion of variability in scores for psychological distress, beyond that accounted for by any of the six categories of childhood victimization alone, and b) the categories of childhood victimization contribute little to no variability beyond that accounted for by poly-victimization. Findings emphasize the importance for clinicians and researchers to comprehensively assess multiple categories of childhood victimization and poly-victimization when evaluating a client’s psychological adjustment. Program-2014   Keynote Speaker   Center for Gender Studies   Psychology   Sociology   Women's Studies last update: May 28th  2014               Radford University ~ Radford, Virginia            webpage: w.andrew