Witnessing Parental Domestic Violence and Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety in Filipino Adolescents

Michelle J. Hindin, Johns Hopkins University

The experience of adverse familial events, such as parental domestic violence, could have a lasting impact on the mental well-being of adolescents. Using cross-sectional data from 2,051 adolescents who were interviewed in 2002 as part of an on-going cohort study in Cebu, Philippines, levels of anxiety/depression and reports of witnessing parental domestic violence were obtained. Twenty-six percent of males and 37% of females reported experiencing four or more symptoms of anxiety/depression and 47% recalled parental domestic violence. After adjustment, males who witnessed domestic violence were 1.43 times more likely and females were 1.75 times more likely to report having four or more symptoms of anxiety/depression. Females were over three times as likely to report four or more symptoms of depression/anxiety if they remembered parental domestic violence severe enough to require medical attention. Adolescents who report witnessing parental domestic violence are at significantly greater risk of having depression/anxiety.