Assessing community violence: the children's report of exposure to violence.
OBJECTIVE
To describe the development and initial psychometric features of a brief self-report instrument for assessing exposure to community violence, the Children's Report of Exposure to Violence (CREV).


METHODS
The CREV was administered to 228 schoolchildren between the ages of 9 and 15 years. A subset (n = 42) was retested 2 weeks later.


RESULTS
The CREV has good test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and construct validity. Analyses performed by race and gender revealed no differences in frequency of exposure to community violence as assessed by the CREV.


CONCLUSIONS
This initial report suggests that the CREV has promise as a self-report questionnaire, and its construction represents a significant advance in the development of psychometrically sound instruments for use in community violence research.
Cooley
M R
MR
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.
Turner
S M
SM
Beidel
D C
DC
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010553:Personality Development; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012931:Social Environment; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D014754:Violence