Washington (H24N). Unfortunately, for many adolescent girls living in inner cities in America, seeing a shooting or witnessing a murder is not out of the norm. In fact, 85.5 percent of the girls surveyed in a recent study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry witnessed a violent act in the community. More than half of the 90 girls surveyed, 55.5 percent, had witnessed a shooting, and 38.8 percent had watched a stabbing in progress, while 13.3 percent had been a witness in a murder.

Those statistics put the girls at increased risk for the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a severe anxiety reaction to a traumatic event. Symptoms associated with PTSD include excessive sweating, headaches, stress, tension, agitation, dizziness, sleeping difficulties and lack of interest in all activities.

Ninety female adolescents, ages 12 to 21, were surveyed using the Childhood Exposure to Trauma Checklist, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Child PTSD checklist, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, the Personal Experience Screening Questionnaire, and the Family Adaptability and Cohesiveness Scale. A subset of 23 girls was also interviewed with the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime version.

Based on current symptoms, 12 girls (14.4 percent) were diagnosed with PTSD and 10 girls (11.6 percent) met the criteria for partial PTSD. Compared to traumatized girls without PTSD, girls with PTSD were significantly more depressed, used more cigarettes and marijuana, and were more likely to have failed a school grade, been suspended from school or been arrested.

To account for problems these girls are facing in school, Deborah Lipschitz and colleagues in the study hypothesize, "It may be that PTSD symptoms such as insomnia, intrusive recollections and poor concentration make it difficult to succeed in school."

Besides PTSD, the effects of violence on inner-city youth are varied and complex. The authors in the study note, "The psychological effects of chronic community- and family-based violence in children and adolescents are diverse and include the development of nonspecific symptoms of psychological distress, depression, aggressive behaviors, and reduced expectations about the future."

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