megan-l-bailey/DCHS-Violence-MH

Stata code used to examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between childhood violence exposure and mental health outcomes at age 8 years in the Drakenstein Child Health Study (South Africa). **Stata code for the paper entitled: "Violence exposure and mental health problems among school-aged children in a South African birth cohort". The study aimed to investigate cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between violence exposure in early- (before age 4.5 years) and mid-childhood (before age 8 years) and mental health symptoms and diagnoses at age 8 years among children in the Drakenstein Child Health Study (DCHS), South Africa.** _Key measures and indices included:_ 1. Childhood violence exposure at ages 4.5 and 8 years was assessed using the parent-report Child Exposure to Community Violence (CECV) Checklist. We examined total violence exposure alongside four subscales (witnessed community violence, community victimisation, witnessed domestic violence, and domestic victimisation) as well as polyvictimisation. 2. Child mental health symptoms at age 8 years was assessed using the parent-report Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL). 3. Child mental health disorders at age 8 years were assessed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview for Children and Adolescents (MINI-KID). 4. Confounders included: child sex, child ethnicity, child HIV status, household income at birth, maternal education level at birth, maternal employment status at birth, maternal marital status at birth, maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy, maternal smoking during pregnancy, maternal antenatal depression, pre-existing child mental healht problems at age 3.5 years, and child age at the 8-year follow-up. _Analysis models were as follows:_ 1. Violence exposure at age 8 years -> Mental health symptoms at age 8 years ; linear regression. 2. Violence exposure at age 8 years -> Mental health disorder at age 8 years ; Firth's penalized logistic regression. 3. Violence exposure at age 4.5 years -> Mental health symptoms at age 8 years ; linear regression. 4. Violence exposure at age 4.5 years -> Mental health disorder at age 8 years ; Firth's penalized logistic regr …