The criminal social violence associated with mental health in Salvadorans

Abstract

This study aimed to determine whether there is a relationship between social criminal violence and mental health in the Salvadoran population. For this purpose, an instrument was built and operationalized so it would measure the crime stress and anxiety as indicators of impaired mental health in the victims of criminal violence. The study used a random, national sample of 1.143 people. Of these 605 (52,8%) were women and 538 (47,1%) were men. The majority age group is between 26 to 35 years (26,8%). The study type is multimodal (Hernandez Fernandez and Baptista, 2006). It can also be named ex post facto (Montero and León, 2007), with a retrospective transversal design. The techniques used for collecting information were surveys and in- depth interviews. To measure the variables of the study of stress and anxiety, the scale crime (ESAD) and the family environment scale (ESAF) were constructed, and the General Health Questionnaire, GHQ-12 was adapted (Golbert, 1970).

All these instruments have reliability and validity in El Salvador. The study reveals that there is increased incidence of crime stress and anxiety, and poor mental health in women and urban residents. The logistic regression model shows that crime anxiety in the Salvadoran population is explained in a significant percentage by the variables: criminal stressor, cultural violence, deterioration of mental health and sex of the sample.