Crime Victimization and Suicidal Ideation Among Colombian College Students: The Role of Depressive Symptoms, Familism, and Social Support

Crime victimization is one of the most pressing public health concerns in Latin America. Young people in the region are at particularly high risk of victimization. The present study examined exposure to crime victimization as a risk factor for depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation, and the protective effects of familism and social support in a community sample of Colombian college students. Data (N = 424) came from the Juventud Project (The Emergent Adults Project), a cross-sectional study of college students, 18 to 29 years old (M = 20.8, SD = 2.5; 63% female; 75.5% lived with their families), attending an urban public university in Southern Colombia. Data were collected between March and June of 2014 through anonymous, self-administered surveys. Conditional process analysis was used to test a model in which crime victimization was directly and indirectly associated with suicidal ideation via depressive symptoms, with familism and social support as moderators of this association while controlling for gender, age, and socioeconomic status. Overall, 58.9% of participants reported at least one crime victimization event in the past year. The most common types of victimization were being robbed without the threat of harm (29.8%) and being robbed with a weapon (24.8%). Male participants reported more instances of crime victimization than female participants. Levels of depressive symptoms that could be clinically significant were reported by 30.2% of participants, and suicidal ideation was reported by 31% of participants. The association between crime victimization and suicidal ideation was fully mediated by depressive symptoms. Social support, but not familism, moderated this association; social support weakened the link between depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation. Findings suggest that crime victimization may be a significant risk for depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation among college students in Colombia, and that social support may protect from the harmful mental health effects of crime victimization.