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Trauma and violent offending among adolescents: a birth cohort study
  1. Kirsi Peltonen1,
  2. Noora Ellonen1,
  3. Joonas Pitkänen2,
  4. Mikko Aaltonen3,
  5. Pekka Martikainen2
  1. 1Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
  2. 2Population Research Unit, Faculty of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  3. 3Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  1. Correspondence to Kirsi Peltonen, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Kalevantie 5, Tampere 33014, Finland; kirsi.peltonen{at}tuni.fi

Abstract

Background Earlier studies, based on data collected among juvenile court clients or prisoners, suggest that there is an association between trauma and adolescent-onset offending. However, there is a lack of large-scale data on juvenile violence and clinical mental health observations with unselected participants, and a risk-factor-oriented research combining multiple variables affecting violent behaviour.

Methods We analyse the effect of trauma on violent offending using longitudinal register-linkage population data. The study is based on administrative data on all Finnish children born between 1986 and 2000, linked with their biological and adoptive parents (N=913 675). The data include annually updated demographic and socioeconomic information from Statistics Finland, hospital discharge and specialised outpatient service records as well as the data from all suspected criminal offences known to the police (1996–2017). We measured trauma diagnosis at age 12–14 and followed participants for subsequent violent criminality from age 15 to 17.

Results The population average estimates, taking into account observed substance abuse and other mental health diagnoses, shows that trauma-related disorders (adjustment problems, post-traumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder) were associated with violent offending. The same was true in sibling fixed effect models, which take into account genetic and environmental confounding shared by siblings.

Discussion These results suggest that severe stress related to traumatic or strong negative life changes in adolescence is a risk factor for violent behaviour.

  • Child health
  • Gene environment interactions
  • Psychiatry
  • Psychosocial factors

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

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Footnotes

  • Contributors KP devised the project, the main conceptual ideas and proof outline. NE and PM and JP involved in planning. JP and MA processed the register data and performed the analysis. KP, NE and JP designed the figures. All authors worked on interpreting the results and worked on the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent for publication Not required.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

  • Data availability statement No data are available.