Steven J Collings
Biographic Data
| ID | 6052694 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven J Collings |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven J |
| FAMILY NAME | Collings |
| SIGNATURE | COLLINGS S J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of KwaZulu-Natal |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 28 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
A proposed model for evaluating the impact of participating in trauma-focused research
This article describes the development of a model for assessing levels of risk in trauma-focused research, with evidence for the empirical validity of the model being provided by findings from a study of 438 undergraduate students who participated in a survey regarding past-year exposure to intimate partner violence. A minor increase in risk over minimal risk was found to constitute the modal risk category, with evidence for the empirical validit…
Suicidal and Death Ideation in a Cohort of Psychiatric Outpatients
In Africa, data on the prevalence and predictors of death and suicidal ideation is lacking. In this study, a cross-sectional design was used to investigate the prevalence and risk factors for death and suicidal ideation in a cohort of 239 psychiatric patients receiving outpatient treatment at nine sites in the Durban area (South Africa) in 2015. Prevalence rates for death and suicidal ideation were high, with 35 (16%) patients reporting death ide…
Measuring acquired capability for suicide
Proponents of the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide have theorized that an acquired capability for suicide is a key construct in the development of high-risk suicidal behavior. However, extant measures do not adequately capture the content domains of this construct. Using 239 psychiatric outpatients recruited from public and private psychiatry and psychology sites, we validated a measure of acquired capability derived from extant meas…
The experience of non-offending caregivers following the disclosure of child sexual abuse
Non-offending caregivers play a critical role in mediating the child survivor’s recovery from child sexual abuse. Despite this, little has been documented about their experiences in the South African context. This exploratory qualitative study investigates the experiences of 10 caregivers following the disclosure of sexual abuse of a child under their care. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that caregivers experienced multiple forms of emoti…
The meaning of developmental trauma
This article describes the development and validation of a brief screen for developmental trauma appraisals. The 7-item screen was administered to a non-clinical sample of 477 South African adolescents who had experienced interpersonal violence during childhood. In all, 216 participants (45%) met the study criteria for a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder and 41 (9%) met the study criteria for a diagnosis of complex posttraumatic stress d…
Convergent Validity Assessment of a Brief Screen for Poverty with South African Adolescents
We explored the convergent validity of a brief screen for poverty with a convenience sample of 462 South African school-aged adolescents. Participants completed the poverty screen of the Developmental Trauma Inventory as well as the Household Economic and Social Status Index, which is a composite measure of socioeconomic status that was developed and validated using South African samples. Results indicated that scores on the poverty screen were s…
The Incidence of Polysubstance Abuse among Treatment Seeking Youth in Durban, South Africa
Concurrent validity of the Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress (Sides-SR) in a non-clinical sample of South African adolescents
The concurrent criterion-related validity of the Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress (SIDES-SR) was examined in a cross-sectional study of 719 secondary school students attending a high school in Durban, South Africa. For purposes of analysis, exposure to complex developmental trauma was defined as exposure to either chronic (>1 month) and/or multiple incidents (5+ types) of interpersonal victimisation prior to the age of 18 year…
Psychosocial Influences on Substance Abuse in a Sample of South African Youth
This study investigated the lived experience of substance abusers in the South African context. Participants were 10 individuals attending a drug treatment centre in Durban, South Africa. Data were collected using open-ended interviews with data being analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggest that normative social influences and levels of social support play an important role in shaping, maintaining, and determining the trajectory of dru…
Child Sexual Abuse Experiences Mediate the Relationship Between Poverty and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
There is a growing body of evidence from developing countries which suggests there is an association between poverty and risk of common mental disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Patel & Kleinman,2003). With respect to the mechanisms underlying this relationship, it is far from clear whether poverty exerts a direct influence on PTSD outcomes (i.e., over and above individual factors such as trauma exposure) as suggested by som…
Childhood Exposure to Community and Domestic Violence
The effects of exposure to direct and vicarious community and domestic violence on the posttraumatic adjustment of 323 South African students were examined. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires, with the relationship between exposure to violence and posttraumatic outcomes being explored using binomial logistic regression analyses. Two hundred and sixty-two participants (81 %) reported that they had been exposed to some form …
An Emic Perspective on the Dynamics of Non-Fatal Suicidal Behaviour in a Sample of South African Indian Women
We aimed to obtain an emic perspective on the dynamics of non-fatal suicidal behaviour in a high risk population group in South African, viz. adolescent females of Indian origin. Interviews were conducted with 10 respondents admitted to a state hospital in the greater Durban area, following their intentional overdose of prescription medication. Interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, and thematically analysed in an attempt to identify influen…
The Cross-Cultural Validity of the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale
The cross-cultural validity of the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale was examined in samples of adolescents and young adults drawn from three countries: South Africa (n = 200), Korea (n = 200), and Sweden (n = 200). Participants completed the 15-item Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale (CSAMS). For each country data were analyzed using principal-axis factor analyses with varimax rotation. Responses on the CSAMS obtained for the original South African valid…
Racial Attitudes Among South African University Students
In 2002, moderately high levels of modern and old-fashioned racism were documented in a representative sample of 433 students registered in undergraduate courses at a South African university (Pillay & Collings, 2004). In 2006, this survey was replicated using identical methods of data collection and a sample which was representative of university enrolments for 2006 in terms of gender and race: N = 543, gender = 50% female; race = black (40%), I…
The News About Child Sexual Abuse
The extent and representativeness of child sexual abuse reporting in the South African English-language press were examined. Baseline data for the study comprised a complete record of all cases of child sexual abuse reported to the police in the North Durban Policing area (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) from January 2001 to December 2004, with newspaper reports of child sexual abuse being obtained from the 2004 online archives of a South African En…
Nonsupportive Disclosure in Child Sexual Abuse
In a sample of 856 South African child victims of sexual abuse (M age= 10.2 yr., SD=4.2), 26% experienced nonsupportive reactions at initial disclosure, with nonsupportive reactions taking two forms, ignoring the child (16% of cases) and punishing or silencing the child (10% of cases). Nonsupportive disclosure was equally likely when the confidant was a nonoffending guardian (OR= 1.00), another family member (OR= 0.84), or a professional person (…
Provision of Antiretroviral Prophylaxis to Child Rape Victims in South Africa
In a sample of 780 South African child victims of rape (girls under the age of 18 years; age M= 10.5 yr., SD=4.8), 10% did not qualify for antiretroviral prophylaxis because HIV status at presentation was positive and a further 34.1% did not qualify because the rape was reported more than 72 hours after the alleged offense. Regression analyses indicated that child rape victims who reported that they had been sexually active prior to the rape cons…
Patterns of Disclosure in Child Sexual Abuse
This study examined patterns of disclosure in a sample of 1 737 cases of child sexual abuse (1 614 girls and 123 boys) reported in the North Durban policing area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, during the period January 2001 to December 2003. A content analysis of disclosure patterns identified two broad dimensions of disclosure (Agency: child-initiated disclosure versus detection by a third party, and Temporal duration: an event versus a process…
Racism on a South African Campus
Racial experiences and attitudes were examined in a sample of 433 South African university students. Two hundred and forty-two respondents (55.9%) reported that they had experienced a total of 926 racial incidents on campus in the 12-month period reviewed. The majority of these experiences (71%) involved discriminatory behaviors, with members of the university staff being the modal perpetrators (56% of all incidents). Although racial experiences …
Child Sexual Abuse Myth Acceptance Among Aspirant, Trainee, and Registered Psychologists in Durban, South Africa
This study examined the effect of gender and professional training on child sexual abuse myth acceptance among aspirant, trainee, and registered psychologists in Durban, South Africa. Using a 2 (gender: male, female) × 3 (training: aspirant psychologists, psychologists in training, practicing psychologists) design, 90 participants completed the 15-item Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Myth Scale. AMANOVA revealed a significant main effect for gender, wit…
Methodological Issues in Research on Child Sexual Abuse Attributions
The purpose of the study was to investigate methodological influences in research on child sexual abuse attributions. Two hundred and forty respondents were exposed to a newspaper report of a child sexual abuse incident. Methodological influences on attributional thinking were assessed using a 2 (population: university students vs. general population) x 2 (lexical description of abuse: the language of abusive vs. consensual sexual activity) x 2 (…
The Prevalence and Characteristics of Child Sexual Abuse among South African University Students
Lexical Redescription of Child Sexual Abuse in the South African English-Language Press
Lexical Redescription of Child Sexual Abuse in the South African English-Language Press
Content analysis of 1.044 child sexual abuse reports over an 8-yr. period in the South African English-language press indicated that 8.5% ( n = 89) of reports use the language of consensual sexual activity to describe the abuse, with this percentage remaining constant over the 8-yr. period reviewed
The Impact of Contextual Ambiguity on the Interpretation and Recall of Child Sexual Abuse Media Reports
Previous research indicates that approximately 40% of child sexual abuse media reports areambiguous in the sense that information relating to the nature of abuse, the identity of the perpetrator,and/or the location of abuse is not specified. This research examined the impact of suchcontextual ambiguity on the recall and interpretation of child sexual abuse media reports. The189 respondents were recruited through media appeals and presented with o…
Childhood Sexual Abuse in a Sample of South African University Males
Using a retrospective questionnaire approach, the current study explored the prevalence of child sexual abuse in a sample of 284 South African university men. The definition of child sexual abuse used in the study included all unwanted contact or non-contact sexual experience involving a child of 17 years or younger. Eighty-two respondents (28,9%) reported a total of 91 experiences of contact (36,3%) and non-contact (63,7%) sexual abuse which met…
Racism on a South African Campus
Racial experiences and attitudes were examined in a sample of 433 South African university students. Two hundred and forty-two respondents (55.9%) reported that they had experienced a total of 926 racial incidents on campus in the 12-month period reviewed. The majority of these experiences (71%) involved discriminatory behaviors, with members of the university staff being the modal perpetrators (56% of all incidents). Although racial experiences …
The experience of non-offending caregivers following the disclosure of child sexual abuse
Non-offending caregivers play a critical role in mediating the child survivor’s recovery from child sexual abuse. Despite this, little has been documented about their experiences in the South African context. This exploratory qualitative study investigates the experiences of 10 caregivers following the disclosure of sexual abuse of a child under their care. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that caregivers experienced multiple forms of emoti…
Patterns of Disclosure in Child Sexual Abuse
This study examined patterns of disclosure in a sample of 1 737 cases of child sexual abuse (1 614 girls and 123 boys) reported in the North Durban policing area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, during the period January 2001 to December 2003. A content analysis of disclosure patterns identified two broad dimensions of disclosure (Agency: child-initiated disclosure versus detection by a third party, and Temporal duration: an event versus a process…
A proposed model for evaluating the impact of participating in trauma-focused research
This article describes the development of a model for assessing levels of risk in trauma-focused research, with evidence for the empirical validity of the model being provided by findings from a study of 438 undergraduate students who participated in a survey regarding past-year exposure to intimate partner violence. A minor increase in risk over minimal risk was found to constitute the modal risk category, with evidence for the empirical validit…
The meaning of developmental trauma
This article describes the development and validation of a brief screen for developmental trauma appraisals. The 7-item screen was administered to a non-clinical sample of 477 South African adolescents who had experienced interpersonal violence during childhood. In all, 216 participants (45%) met the study criteria for a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder and 41 (9%) met the study criteria for a diagnosis of complex posttraumatic stress d…
An Emic Perspective on the Dynamics of Non-Fatal Suicidal Behaviour in a Sample of South African Indian Women
We aimed to obtain an emic perspective on the dynamics of non-fatal suicidal behaviour in a high risk population group in South African, viz. adolescent females of Indian origin. Interviews were conducted with 10 respondents admitted to a state hospital in the greater Durban area, following their intentional overdose of prescription medication. Interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, and thematically analysed in an attempt to identify influen…
The Impact of Contextual Ambiguity on the Interpretation and Recall of Child Sexual Abuse Media Reports
Previous research indicates that approximately 40% of child sexual abuse media reports areambiguous in the sense that information relating to the nature of abuse, the identity of the perpetrator,and/or the location of abuse is not specified. This research examined the impact of suchcontextual ambiguity on the recall and interpretation of child sexual abuse media reports. The189 respondents were recruited through media appeals and presented with o…
Sexual Aggression
The prevalence of sexual aggression was examined in a non-forensic sample of 393 university males. A history of sexually abusive behaviour was reported by 25% of respondents, with six per cent reporting an act of sexual aggresssion that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape. The results of a discriminant analysis indicated a significant relationship between sexually abusive behaviour and attitudes supportive of sexual dominance and a…
Barriers to Rape Reporting among White South African Women
This study was designed to investigate the reasons why many rape victims fail to report their victimization to public agencies. The study sample comprised 54 victims of unreported rape (38 Afrikaans-speaking white females and 16 English-speaking white females) who had responded to media appeals. In line with recent conceptualizations of crime victim decision making, barriers to reporting were examined at three levels of abstraction: the intrapers…
Barriers to Rape Reporting among White South African Women
This study was designed to investigate the reasons why many rape victims fail to report their victimization to public agencies. The study sample comprised 54 victims of unreported rape (38 Afrikaans-speaking white females and 16 English-speaking white females) who had responded to media appeals. In line with recent conceptualizations of crime victim decision making, barriers to reporting were examined at three levels of abstraction: the intrapers…
Childhood Sexual Abuse in a Sample of South African University Males
Using a retrospective questionnaire approach, the current study explored the prevalence of child sexual abuse in a sample of 284 South African university men. The definition of child sexual abuse used in the study included all unwanted contact or non-contact sexual experience involving a child of 17 years or younger. Eighty-two respondents (28,9%) reported a total of 91 experiences of contact (36,3%) and non-contact (63,7%) sexual abuse which met…
Sexual Aggression
The prevalence of sexual aggression was examined in a non-forensic sample of 393 university males. A history of sexually abusive behaviour was reported by 25% of respondents, with six per cent reporting an act of sexual aggresssion that met the legal definition of rape or attempted rape. The results of a discriminant analysis indicated a significant relationship between sexually abusive behaviour and attitudes supportive of sexual dominance and a…
The Prevalence and Characteristics of Child Sexual Abuse among South African University Students
Lexical Redescription of Child Sexual Abuse in the South African English-Language Press
Lexical Redescription of Child Sexual Abuse in the South African English-Language Press
Content analysis of 1.044 child sexual abuse reports over an 8-yr. period in the South African English-language press indicated that 8.5% ( n = 89) of reports use the language of consensual sexual activity to describe the abuse, with this percentage remaining constant over the 8-yr. period reviewed
The Impact of Contextual Ambiguity on the Interpretation and Recall of Child Sexual Abuse Media Reports
Previous research indicates that approximately 40% of child sexual abuse media reports areambiguous in the sense that information relating to the nature of abuse, the identity of the perpetrator,and/or the location of abuse is not specified. This research examined the impact of suchcontextual ambiguity on the recall and interpretation of child sexual abuse media reports. The189 respondents were recruited through media appeals and presented with o…
Child Sexual Abuse Myth Acceptance Among Aspirant, Trainee, and Registered Psychologists in Durban, South Africa
This study examined the effect of gender and professional training on child sexual abuse myth acceptance among aspirant, trainee, and registered psychologists in Durban, South Africa. Using a 2 (gender: male, female) × 3 (training: aspirant psychologists, psychologists in training, practicing psychologists) design, 90 participants completed the 15-item Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Myth Scale. AMANOVA revealed a significant main effect for gender, wit…
Methodological Issues in Research on Child Sexual Abuse Attributions
The purpose of the study was to investigate methodological influences in research on child sexual abuse attributions. Two hundred and forty respondents were exposed to a newspaper report of a child sexual abuse incident. Methodological influences on attributional thinking were assessed using a 2 (population: university students vs. general population) x 2 (lexical description of abuse: the language of abusive vs. consensual sexual activity) x 2 (…
Racism on a South African Campus
Racial experiences and attitudes were examined in a sample of 433 South African university students. Two hundred and forty-two respondents (55.9%) reported that they had experienced a total of 926 racial incidents on campus in the 12-month period reviewed. The majority of these experiences (71%) involved discriminatory behaviors, with members of the university staff being the modal perpetrators (56% of all incidents). Although racial experiences …
Provision of Antiretroviral Prophylaxis to Child Rape Victims in South Africa
In a sample of 780 South African child victims of rape (girls under the age of 18 years; age M= 10.5 yr., SD=4.8), 10% did not qualify for antiretroviral prophylaxis because HIV status at presentation was positive and a further 34.1% did not qualify because the rape was reported more than 72 hours after the alleged offense. Regression analyses indicated that child rape victims who reported that they had been sexually active prior to the rape cons…
Patterns of Disclosure in Child Sexual Abuse
This study examined patterns of disclosure in a sample of 1 737 cases of child sexual abuse (1 614 girls and 123 boys) reported in the North Durban policing area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, during the period January 2001 to December 2003. A content analysis of disclosure patterns identified two broad dimensions of disclosure (Agency: child-initiated disclosure versus detection by a third party, and Temporal duration: an event versus a process…
The News About Child Sexual Abuse
The extent and representativeness of child sexual abuse reporting in the South African English-language press were examined. Baseline data for the study comprised a complete record of all cases of child sexual abuse reported to the police in the North Durban Policing area (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) from January 2001 to December 2004, with newspaper reports of child sexual abuse being obtained from the 2004 online archives of a South African En…
Nonsupportive Disclosure in Child Sexual Abuse
In a sample of 856 South African child victims of sexual abuse (M age= 10.2 yr., SD=4.2), 26% experienced nonsupportive reactions at initial disclosure, with nonsupportive reactions taking two forms, ignoring the child (16% of cases) and punishing or silencing the child (10% of cases). Nonsupportive disclosure was equally likely when the confidant was a nonoffending guardian (OR= 1.00), another family member (OR= 0.84), or a professional person (…
Racial Attitudes Among South African University Students
In 2002, moderately high levels of modern and old-fashioned racism were documented in a representative sample of 433 students registered in undergraduate courses at a South African university (Pillay & Collings, 2004). In 2006, this survey was replicated using identical methods of data collection and a sample which was representative of university enrolments for 2006 in terms of gender and race: N = 543, gender = 50% female; race = black (40%), I…
The Cross-Cultural Validity of the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale
The cross-cultural validity of the Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale was examined in samples of adolescents and young adults drawn from three countries: South Africa (n = 200), Korea (n = 200), and Sweden (n = 200). Participants completed the 15-item Child Sexual Abuse Myth Scale (CSAMS). For each country data were analyzed using principal-axis factor analyses with varimax rotation. Responses on the CSAMS obtained for the original South African valid…
Childhood Exposure to Community and Domestic Violence
The effects of exposure to direct and vicarious community and domestic violence on the posttraumatic adjustment of 323 South African students were examined. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires, with the relationship between exposure to violence and posttraumatic outcomes being explored using binomial logistic regression analyses. Two hundred and sixty-two participants (81 %) reported that they had been exposed to some form …
An Emic Perspective on the Dynamics of Non-Fatal Suicidal Behaviour in a Sample of South African Indian Women
We aimed to obtain an emic perspective on the dynamics of non-fatal suicidal behaviour in a high risk population group in South African, viz. adolescent females of Indian origin. Interviews were conducted with 10 respondents admitted to a state hospital in the greater Durban area, following their intentional overdose of prescription medication. Interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, and thematically analysed in an attempt to identify influen…
Psychosocial Influences on Substance Abuse in a Sample of South African Youth
This study investigated the lived experience of substance abusers in the South African context. Participants were 10 individuals attending a drug treatment centre in Durban, South Africa. Data were collected using open-ended interviews with data being analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggest that normative social influences and levels of social support play an important role in shaping, maintaining, and determining the trajectory of dru…
Child Sexual Abuse Experiences Mediate the Relationship Between Poverty and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
There is a growing body of evidence from developing countries which suggests there is an association between poverty and risk of common mental disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Patel & Kleinman,2003). With respect to the mechanisms underlying this relationship, it is far from clear whether poverty exerts a direct influence on PTSD outcomes (i.e., over and above individual factors such as trauma exposure) as suggested by som…
Concurrent validity of the Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress (Sides-SR) in a non-clinical sample of South African adolescents
The concurrent criterion-related validity of the Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress (SIDES-SR) was examined in a cross-sectional study of 719 secondary school students attending a high school in Durban, South Africa. For purposes of analysis, exposure to complex developmental trauma was defined as exposure to either chronic (>1 month) and/or multiple incidents (5+ types) of interpersonal victimisation prior to the age of 18 year…
The Incidence of Polysubstance Abuse among Treatment Seeking Youth in Durban, South Africa
Convergent Validity Assessment of a Brief Screen for Poverty with South African Adolescents
We explored the convergent validity of a brief screen for poverty with a convenience sample of 462 South African school-aged adolescents. Participants completed the poverty screen of the Developmental Trauma Inventory as well as the Household Economic and Social Status Index, which is a composite measure of socioeconomic status that was developed and validated using South African samples. Results indicated that scores on the poverty screen were s…
The experience of non-offending caregivers following the disclosure of child sexual abuse
Non-offending caregivers play a critical role in mediating the child survivor’s recovery from child sexual abuse. Despite this, little has been documented about their experiences in the South African context. This exploratory qualitative study investigates the experiences of 10 caregivers following the disclosure of sexual abuse of a child under their care. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that caregivers experienced multiple forms of emoti…
The meaning of developmental trauma
This article describes the development and validation of a brief screen for developmental trauma appraisals. The 7-item screen was administered to a non-clinical sample of 477 South African adolescents who had experienced interpersonal violence during childhood. In all, 216 participants (45%) met the study criteria for a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder and 41 (9%) met the study criteria for a diagnosis of complex posttraumatic stress d…
Psychology (28 works) · Medicine (21 works) · Clinical Psychology (19 works) · Poison control (19 works) · Sexual abuse (15 works) · Child Abuse and Trauma (14 works) · Child sexual abuse (13 works) · Developmental psychology (12 works) · Suicide prevention (12 works) · Medical emergency (10 works)