Department of Gerontology, Faculty of Health and Social Welfare, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Ramat Gan Academic College, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Front Public Health. 2024 Jun 5;12:1382053. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1382053. eCollection 2024.
To date, it is still unclear if exposure to violence affects psychological distress in middle-aged adults and if the effects are gender specific. This age group is of special interest as it is at the onset of the aging process and is often overlooked or understudied in scholarly research. Specifically, targeted research on middle-aged Muslims living in Israel, a unique population exposed to increasing violence, is lacking.
We examined the relationship between exposure to violence and psychological distress in a cohort of 363 middle-aged adults (223 women) from three Muslim villages in northern Israel, collecting data on violence exposure (Screen for Adolescent Violence Exposure (SAVE) questionnaire), psychological distress (Kessler 6 Psychological Distress questionnaire), and other demographic characteristics including education level and socioeconomic status. We used this data to answer two questions: (1) is exposure to violence a predictor of psychological distress in middle-aged Muslims, and (2) does the relationship between exposure and distress differ between men and women?
We revealed a positive link between exposure to violence and psychological distress ( = 0.145, = 0.017) when controlling for gender, age, education level, and socioeconomic level.
Despite previous evidence of gender-based differences in this interplay in younger cohorts, we did not find a significant interaction between gender and the violence exposure-psychological distress interplay. Our findings are some of the first to focus on middle-aged individuals and show that both men and women exhibit connections between exposure to violence and psychological distress when considering covariates. This research provides insights that can be used when planning community-wide interventions and treatment schemes to support healthy aging.
迄今为止，尚不清楚暴力暴露是否会影响中年成年人的心理困扰，以及这种影响是否具有性别特异性。该年龄组特别有趣，因为它处于衰老过程的开始阶段，在学术研究中经常被忽视或研究不足。特别是，针对生活在以色列的中年穆斯林的特定研究，以色列是一个经常面临暴力增加的独特群体，这方面的研究非常缺乏。
我们研究了暴露于暴力与 363 名来自以色列北部三个穆斯林村庄的中年成年人（223 名女性）的心理困扰之间的关系，收集了暴力暴露（青少年暴力暴露筛查问卷）、心理困扰（Kessler 6 心理困扰问卷）以及其他人口统计学特征（包括教育水平和社会经济地位）的数据。我们使用这些数据来回答两个问题：（1）暴露于暴力是否是中年穆斯林心理困扰的一个预测因素；（2）暴露与困扰之间的关系在男性和女性之间是否存在差异。
在控制性别、年龄、教育水平和社会经济水平后，我们发现暴露于暴力与心理困扰之间存在正相关（β=0.145，p=0.017）。
尽管之前有证据表明在年轻群体中这种相互作用存在性别差异，但我们没有发现性别与暴力暴露-心理困扰相互作用之间存在显著的交互作用。我们的研究结果是首批关注中年人群的研究之一，表明在考虑协变量时，男性和女性都表现出了暴露于暴力与心理困扰之间的联系。这项研究为规划社区范围的干预措施和治疗方案提供了支持健康老龄化的见解。
