Food insecurity as a determinant of post-traumatic stress and a risk factor in mental health of young people from Caracas

Abstract

The objective of this research was to evaluate the results from an interdisciplinary perspective of the influence of insecurity and food diversity, general mental health, age and gender on the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, at the same time, tries to verify how these variables relate to each other in young people from Caracas-Venezuela. A path analysis was settled to obtain the direct and indirect influences of the variables raised in the posttraumatic symptoms, in a sample of 300 school adolescents, with ages between 12 and 19 years old. The results indicated that young people presented slight levels of food insecurity. The different posttraumatic symptoms was influenced by depression (ᵦ = 0.54; p = 0.000), anxiety (ᵦ = 0.39, p = 0.000) and a lesser extent by food insecurity (ᵦ = 0.08; p = 0.000). On the other hand, these symptoms of depression (ᵦ = 0.20, p = 0.000) and anxiety (ᵦ = 0.37, p = 0.000) were predicted by food insecurity. In adition, it was discussed indirect influences of insecurity on the alteration in the perception of oneself and others.