BACKGROUND: Research has demonstrated the damaging effects of poly-victimization on the mental health of children and adolescents. However, few studies have been conducted in high-risk youth in care (Y-IC) samples.
OBJECTIVE: The study examines the frequency of lifetime victimization and the association of poly-victimization and victimization types on depressiveness, suicidality, and feelings of loneliness among Y-IC.
METHODS: 164 participants aged 14 and 21 years (M = 17.39, SD = 1.95), who live in family-based care or residential care.
METHODS: The Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) was used to assess lifetime victimization. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and the Loneliness Scale-SOEP (LS-S) to measure depressiveness, suicidality, and loneliness. Hierarchical regression models were calculated.
RESULTS: Participants reported on average 12.66 (SD = 6.58) victimization experiences. The female and diverse gender groups reported higher rates of victimization, loneliness, depressiveness, and suicidality than the males. Participants in residential care reported more victimizations and stronger feelings of loneliness than those in family-based care. Poly-victimization was not associated with any of these internalizing symptoms but peer victimization was significantly associated with depressiveness (β = 0.23, p = .002) and loneliness (β = 0.22, p = .006), sexual victimization with depressiveness (β = 0.22, p = .004).
CONCLUSIONS: Y-IC show high levels of victimization and internalizing symptoms, with higher burden on girls and youth living in residential care. Findings underscore the relevance of social exclusion experiences among peers within Y-IC. Interventions should address multiple forms of victimization, with a special focus on sexual and peer victimization.

BACKGROUND: Poly-victimization is more detrimental to adolescents\' physical and mental health than is a single type of victimization. However, there has been limited research on the trajectory of poly-victimization among Chinese adolescents.
OBJECTIVE: Identify the different developmental trajectories of poly-victimization among Chinese adolescents over time and examine the influencing factors of poly-victimization trajectories.
METHODS: Data from four surveys conducted between 2020 and 2022, encompassing a cohort of 319 adolescents who had experienced poly-victimization, were utilized to identify their developmental trajectories via group-based trajectory modeling. Potential influencing factors were screened and compared using ANOVA or chi-square tests, while factors affecting the developmental trajectories of poly-victimization were analyzed through multinomial logistic regression.
RESULTS: We identified three poly-victimization trajectories among adolescents: increasing poly-victimization (n = 39, 12.2 %), relieved poly-victimization (n = 228, 71.5 %), and fluctuating poly-victimization (n = 52, 16.3 %). Our findings indicate that boys, and those with poor class grade ranking, a lower level of parental education, lower household economy, smoking, drinking, suicide attempts, and suicide ideation, constitute the primary focus for the prevention and treatment of poly-victimization.
CONCLUSIONS: We identified three poly-victimization trajectories, highlighting a significant heterogeneity in poly-victimization development. Understanding the characteristics of these developmental trajectories is crucial for realizing the dynamics of different poly-victimization subgroups and informing effective interventions.

Throughout the last two decades, research on poly-victimization (PV) has evolved from examinations of a core set of past-year victimization types in youth samples to investigations of a broad range of victimization types experienced during variable time intervals in diverse samples of varying ages. As the concept of PV expands, greater clarity regarding the definition and measurement of PV is needed to advance understanding of its risk and protective factors as well as its associated outcomes. This scoping review aimed to (a) identify approaches used to operationally define and measure PV across studies and (b) synthesize empirical findings concerning risk factors and outcomes associated with PV. A systematic search of peer-reviewed research published before 2022 across 12 databases yielded 98 studies that met inclusion criteria. Study characteristics including the research design, sample type, victimization timeframe, operational definition(s) of PV, measurement of PV, analytic methods, and key findings were synthesized across studies. Findings indicated that the majority of reviewed studies were cross-sectional investigations that utilized categorical measures of lifetime PV in samples of youth. Results also demonstrated that PV is robustly associated with a broad range of predictors, including mental health symptoms and diagnoses as well as family- and community-level factors. PV is also associated with numerous adverse outcomes including depression, anxiety, suicidality, substance use, and delinquency across diverse study types and populations. Future research that examines the conditional effects of PV is needed to identify subgroups of individuals at higher risk of adverse outcomes following PV and modifiable targets for interventions.

This study investigated the effect of the poly-victimization pattern of traumatic childhood experiences on aggression via the impulsivity traits positive urgency, negative urgency, lack of perseverance, lack of premeditation, and sensation-seeking in 102 poly-victims of childhood trauma (71.57% were females; Mage = 35.76; SDage = 15.91). Analyses with poly-victimization as an independent variable, impulsivity traits as parallel mediators, (1) reactive aggression or (2) proactive aggression as dependent variables, and gender as a covariate revealed that the poly-victimization did not have a direct or indirect effect on reactive or proactive aggression, nor did it have an effect on any of the impulsivity traits. Moreover, lack of premeditation had a positive direct effect on reactive aggression, while gender was a significant covariate in both models, with males reporting more aggression than females. Findings suggest that the poly-victimization does not influence impulsivity traits and aggression in adulthood. However, in males, the poly-victimization had a positive and moderate correlation with reactive aggression and negative urgency, while these correlations were absent in females. This finding implies that males are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of childhood poly-victimization than females.

Research has indicated that children with disabilities are at higher risk for victimization although the literature on this topic is limited.
We examined rates of assault, sexual victimization, peer-sibling victimization, property crime, maltreatment, and poly-victimization among youth in the United States with and without disabilities. We examined these rates for three age groups (children ages 0-4 years, ages 5-11 years, and ages 12-17 years).
We use data from the National Survey of Children\'s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV), waves I (2008), II (2011), and III (2014). These are cross-sectional nationally representative samples of children and youth ages one month to 17 years (N = 12,634).
Considering children of all ages together, children in all disability categories, except for physical disability, were at higher risk for poly-victimization. Victimization exposure overall is higher among older children (except for assault among very young children with developmental or learning disabilities), though the disparity between children with and without disabilities generally narrows as children get older. Age of the child impacted the relationships between disability and victimization. Very young children with physical disabilities were at heightened risk for most types of victimization while children with internalizing disabilities were at heightened risk for assault, property crime, and maltreatment in middle childhood and adolescence. Children with externalizing disabilities were at heightened risk for most types of victimization across all ages while developmental disabilities appeared to be risk factor for very young children and a potentially protective factor at later ages though these varied by type of victimization.
Victimization risk varied by victimization and disability types. This study demonstrates the importance of controlling for demographic characteristics, especially age of the child in estimating the prevalence of victimization among children with disabilities and establishes the importance of type-specific analyses by victimization type, disability type, and age of the child.

Autistic people experience high rates of violence and victimization which is largely due to structural injustices, including stigma and social attitudes. Identifying and addressing systemic and structural factors is vitally important, however effecting change in embedded social structures is likely to take some time, even with concerted efforts. In the meantime, it is important to understand whether there are other individual-level factors that may assist in developing preventative and protective strategies for autistic people. The current study investigated the role of individual-level risk factors in the victimization of autistic people. Specifically, we examined whether characteristics that are common among autistic people that is, lower social competence, higher compliance and emotion regulation difficulties or more ADHD features (inattention, impulsiveness and hyperactivity) were associated with poly-victimization in a community sample of 228 adults (118 autistic, 110 non-autistic). Our results show that only ADHD features were predictive of poly-victimization once socio-demographic background variables (age, sexual orientation) were adjusted for. Group status was not a significant predictor in the model and there were no interaction effects between any of the characteristics and group status. These findings suggest that, regardless of whether a person is autistic, ADHD features may place individuals at higher risk of experiencing multiple forms of violence in adulthood. Further research using longitudinal designs and larger, diverse samples is needed. Furthermore, the regression model only accounted for about one-third of the variance in poly-victimization which highlights the importance of looking beyond individual-level risk factors to structural and systemic factors that contribute to disproportionate victimization of autistic people.

UNASSIGNED: Childhood trauma is a risk factor for psychosis. It is proposed this is due to traumatic events giving rise to psychological mechanisms that are implicated in the development and maintenance of symptoms. Investigation of the psychological mechanisms accounting for relationships between trauma and psychosis will be assisted by focusing on specific trauma profiles, hallucination modalities, and delusion subtypes.
UNASSIGNED: In 171 adults with schizophrenia-spectrum diagnoses and high-conviction delusions, associations between childhood trauma classes, and hallucination and delusion factors, were tested using structural equation models (SEMs). Anxiety, depression, and negative schema were examined as potential mediators of trauma class-psychosis symptom factor links.
UNASSIGNED: Significant associations were found between the emotional abuse/neglect and poly-victimization classes with persecutory delusions and delusions of influence, that were all mediated through anxiety (β = 1.24-0.23, P = < .05). There was an association between the physical abuse class and grandiose/religious delusions that was not explained by the mediators (β = 1.86, P = < .05). Trauma class was not significantly associated with any hallucination modality (β = 0.004-1.46, P = > .05).
UNASSIGNED: In a sample of people with strongly held delusions, this study demonstrates that childhood victimization is associated with delusions of influence and grandiose beliefs, as well as with persecutory delusions in psychosis. Consistent with previous findings, the potent, mediating role of anxiety supports affective pathway theories and the utility of targeting threat-related processes when treating trauma effects in psychosis.

Injuries constitute a large share of childhood morbidity and mortality. This study examines whether adolescents with self-reported experiences of different types of child maltreatment more frequently reported unintentional injury events requiring health- or dental care during the last year and/or hospitalization at any time during childhood. Cross-sectional data from a Swedish national representative school survey (2016) including 4741 adolescents were used (78.5% response rate). Data were analyzed with univariate tests and multiple logistic regression. Statistically significant associations between reported experiences of physical, psychological and sexual abuse, neglect, and witnessing partner violence during childhood and reported unintentional injuries requiring health- or dental care during the last year were found (aOR:s between 1.39-1.77). The corresponding association for poly-victimization was aOR 1.91 (95% CI 1.39-2.62). Furthermore, a linear-by-linear association was seen for degree of victimization and number of episodes of unintentional injuries that required care in the last year (p = 0.000), as well as lifetime hospitalizations (p = 0.000). This study shows significant associations between child maltreatment and unintentional injuries requiring health- and/or dental care and hospitalization. To improve both injury and child maltreatment prevention, healthcare professionals need to pay particular attention to children and adolescents who repeatedly seek healthcare services due to injurious events.

Research has drawn attention to the stigma and high rates of victimization among people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and an overlap between bias and non-bias victimization. However, studies of bias events or hate crime involving persons with ID are scarce. Using a self-report measure, we analyze lifetime bias victimization in a sample of 260 adults diagnosed with ID (age M = 41.7, SD = 12.0; 59.2% men), of whom 92 experienced bias victimization (age M = 41.2, SD = 11.9; 54.3% men), and compare the number of different types of victimization and the poly-victimization status between bias and non-bias victims. We also examine the following features: the victim, offender(s), victim-offender relationship, and location. Results show that bias victims experience a higher number of different types of victimization than non-bias victims (M = 7.74 and 4.96, respectively; p <.001, rrb=.37, ξ=.42) and are four times more likely to be poly-victims than non-bias victims (odds ratio [OR] = 4.37; 95% CI, p  <.001). Most of the victims experienced a number of bias victimization episodes (89.1%; n = 82), and more than a quarter were injured (27.2%, n = 25) as a result of the victimization. All the bias victimizations by strangers were carried out in public places, as were most of the bias victimizations by acquaintances. Schoolmates and work colleagues perpetrated attacks at school and in the workplace, respectively. More than half of the victims, 63% (n = 58), spoke of the experience with someone, but only one reported it to the authorities. The paper provides a valuable descriptive and bivariate analysis of bias victimization of people with ID. The findings will help to understand bias violence against this population, highlighting the need for targeted and effective interventions.

Sexually exploited adolescent girls are disproportionately affected by adverse psychosocial conditions, such as intra-familial child physical and sexual abuse, extra-familial violence and sexual assault, alcohol and drug use, and suicide. Syndemic theory suggests that these adverse psychosocial or syndemic conditions are concentrated and co-occurring in socially marginalized populations, including sexually exploited adolescents, and increase their sexual health risks, including pregnancy, abortion, and the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). To examine clusters of syndemic conditions, latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted to classify 335 sexually exploited girls in Taiwan into subgroups based on their probability of experiencing each syndemic condition. We used syndemic class membership to predict their sexual health outcomes, specifically pregnancy, abortion, and the acquisition of STDs. The results of LCA revealed three classes, which were \"low-risk syndemic,\" \"moderate-risk syndemic,\" and \"high-risk syndemic.\" The risk of acquisition of STDs among sexually exploited girls in the \"high-risk syndemic class\" and \"moderate-risk syndemic class\" was 239% and 135% higher, respectively, than the risk of acquisition of STDs among sexually exploited girls in the \"low-risk syndemic class.\" Differences between these three classes in pregnancy and abortion were not significant. Our findings support the syndemic theory that a pattern of syndemic conditions is associated with an increased risk of acquiring STDs. Interventions aimed at reducing the acquisition of STDs among sexually exploited girls in Taiwan should adopt a comprehensive approach to address co-occurring conditions.