Community Violence Exposure and Academic Performance: Examining the Roles of Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Sleep Quantity and Quality among College Students

ABSTRACT

The current study sought to address the roles of PTSD symptoms, low sleep quantity, and poor sleep quality in the association between community violence exposure and college academic performance. College students (N = 267) from an urban commuter college were surveyed between Fall 2012 to Spring 2016. The age range of the sample was 17 to 29 (M = 20.26, SD = 2.19) and 75.7% were females. Findings indicate that students were exposed to multiple types of community violence and other potentially traumatic events. There was a significant association between community violence exposure and lower GPA, but this association was not directly mediated by accounting for sleep difficulties. Findings may be influenced by sex and race differences. Our findings suggest that screening for community violence exposure among college students might identify students who may benefit from greater academic support as well as greater psychological support.

KEYWORDS:

• Trauma exposure
• sleep difficulties
• PTSD symptoms
• college mental health
• community violence
• academic performance

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the generous contribution of research participants’ time. The staffing for this project was also supported by a PSC CUNY Research Award.

Disclosure of Interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical Standards and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation [institutional and national] and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed written consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.