Abstract

In Mexico in recent years violence has been increased, specific in northern states, but also others crime and violence rates have been increased. The impact of these rates in general population has few records (official or research reports), studies in youth exposed to violence focuses mainly in bullying and dating violence, however in adolescents population practically doesn’t exist community violence records or measures indicated to this problem. This context teenager’s circumstances (exposure to violence and rising crime levels and insecurity) (Pansters and Castillo, 2007, Hope, 2012 ), require instruments to assess this specific phenomenon in youths since the information on the perception (and exposure) of violence and insecurity in the country has increased in the last years, but little is known about young people, then the aim of this study is to obtain the validity and reliability of the Exposure to Insecurity and Violence Questionnaire for Adolescents. Participants were 573 junior and senior high school students (13-19 years, x = 14.89, SD = 1.5, 56% middl 50.08% men) in Mexico City. A forced factor analysis, by 6 factors (KMO = .849, p = .001, 10 iterations) based on previous findings of a qualitative study (Gomez & Lucio, 2013, in press) was conducted. This model explained 39% of variance, which indicates that violence is a multidimensional phenomenon. Reliability was obtained by Cronbach’s alpha with a total value of .92.