Mental Health and Paranoid Thoughts in College Students from Juarez

Abstract

Paranoid thoughts are a psychological consequence of the social violence lived by the people in Juarez, which in 2010 was the most violent city in the world. Most people in Juarez report some degree of paranoid thoughts and these thoughts have been related to mental health. This study analyzes the relationship between paranoid thoughts and mental health. The sample consisted of 315 college students with a mean age of 23.05 (SD = 0.59) years, 70.5% females and 29.5% males. Most of the sample was single (86.0%) and married (9.2%). The Paranoid Thoughts Scale and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised were used to measure paranoid thoughts and mental health (e.g. depression, or anxiety), respectively. All of the mental health factors had statistically significant correlations with paranoid thoughts with correlations ranging from .38 to .57. The people that reported higher levels of paranoid thoughts also reported higher levels of psychological problems or distress. Paranoid thoughts can be considered a predictor of low mental health in people from Juarez.