Psychological Trauma Among Nigerian Undergraduates: The Role of Exposure to Crime and Fear of Crime

Abstract

Studies on psychological health of undergraduate students across the world, including Nigeria shows prevalence of psychological trauma among the students. This study examined the correlation between undergraduate students' exposure to violent crime and psychological trauma, and their fear of crime and psychological trauma. The participants were 505 undergraduates consisting of 226 (45.1%) males, 266 (55.1%) females and 11 (2.2%) who did not indicate their gender. The participants whose ages range from 18 to 32 years, with a mean age of 23. 47years and standard deviation of 2.31 were sampled through systematic random sampling from eight departments randomly drawn from the fourteen faculties in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The instruments used for data generation were: Measure for Exposure to Violence developed by Engelbrecht (2009); Impact of Event Scale (IES-R) developed by Harowitz, Wilner and Alvarez (1997) and fear of Crime Measure developed by Von-Klemperer (2009). The survey study employed a correlational design and used Pearson Product Momen Correlation Statistics for analysis of data. Two research questions were answered and two hypotheses tested at P<0.05 level of significance. The two hypotheses were confirmed. The result of the study showed a significant positive relationship between undergraduate students' exposure to violence crime and psychological trauma, and between fear of crime and psychological trauma. The researchers made recommendations which include among others, generating employment as a measure for curbing violent crime, beefing up security and developing intervention programmes that will victims to cope with fear and psychological trauma.