Trauma and Externalizing Disorders in a Nationally Representative Sample of Adolescents

Exposure to trauma is an insidious problem that affects the health and well-being of adolescents. Though there are several major factors known to impact the subsequent behavior of adolescents who have been exposed to trauma, there have been limited studies that examine how different forms of trauma can affect adolescents in a compounded manner, and even less research done to examine the relationship between multiple instances of victimization (including poly-victimization) and subsequent externalizing behavior disorders in adolescents. Furthermore, the impact that gender and race/ethnicity has on the prevalence of lifetime diagnoses of externalizing behavior disorders when multiple instances of victimization (and in some cases, poly-victimization) is controlled for is limited in its research base. It was hypothesized by this author that trauma exposure was positively correlated with lifetime diagnoses of externalizing disorders. It was also hypothesized that gender and race would not be significant predictors of diagnoses when controlling for trauma, gender, and race/ethnicity. Using a national dataset of adolescents (N=10,148) from the National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A), adolescents' exposure to different forms of trauma and their lifetime diagnosis of various externalizing behavior disorders was examined using a point biserial correlation analysis. A forward logistic regression was conducted to assess trauma exposure frequency as a predictor of externalizing behaviors. Results suggest that there is a positive correlation between trauma frequency and lifetime diagnoses of several externalizing behavior disorders. Trauma frequency was also a significant predictor of lifetime diagnoses of all the examined externalizing behavior disorders. The predictive value of gender and race/ethnicity varied by disorder. Gender was significant for all disorders except oppositional defiant disorder. Race/ethnicity was significant for all disorders except oppositional defiant disorder and intermittent explosive disorder.