Traumatic events involving friends and family members in a sample of African American early adolescents.

The current study examines violent and nonviolent traumatic events involving friends and family members as predictors of PTSD, depression, internalizing, and externalizing behaviors in a sample of 403 African American early adolescents from chronically violent environments. Although there are many studies of urban children's exposure to community violence, few address the unique contribution of events involving significant others, and almost no research addresses African American youths' exposure to traumatic events other than violence. This study found that violent and nonviolent traumatic events were pervasive in the lives of these urban youth, and that they were as likely to report loss and injury of a close other through an accident as an act of violence.