Violence measuring instruments for US Hispanic children and adolescents

Problem: Youth violence is a public health problem across all racial/ethnic groups, including US Hispanic children. Self-report data analyses demonstrate race/ethnicity's limited effect on the general proportion of non-fatal youth violence. Nonetheless, other characteristics which may vary by by race and ethnicity (behavioral norms, language comprehension, cultural effects on violence risk factors) may affect the way children understand, interpret and respond to questions on different violence-related instruments.

Methods: This study systematically assessed the availability of violence-related instruments, tested among US Hispanic children and adolescents. A cross-sectional assessment of empirically tested and peer-reviewed child/adolescent violence-related instruments, available as of October 30, 2009, was conducted. Specific inclusion and exclusion criteria were determined, focusing on instruments that assessed aggression, aggressive behavior, violence, school violence, or bullying perpetrated by US Hispanic children ages 9-17 (grades 5-12).

Results: Most peer-reviewed and validated violence-related instruments are available only in English, and may or may have not included US Hispanics within their samples. Those that included US Hispanics were unlikely to report separately the psychometric properties of the instrument for this population. Only 10 instruments met all the inclusion criteria for this systematic assessment. None were created specifically for US Hispanic children, nor developed originally in Spanish.

Conclusions: Findings highlight the need for further research on the adequacy of currently available and frequently used youth violence assessment instruments among US Hispanics, and to assess whether true differences exist in the self-reported prevalence and rates of youth violence across groups.