By IANS,
Washington : When adolescents are assaulted, they tend to be involved in another violent encounter soon after, says a new study.
“Violence is known to be common among adolescents growing up in urban environments and many emergency departments treat adolescent victims of violence every day,” says Douglas J. Wiebe of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who led the study.
“But what they (victims) experience when they go home, back to school or to the streets is unknown,” said Wiebe.
His team conducted a survey using an interactive voice response system to determine the incidence of violent experiences among 12 to 19-year-olds following discharge from the emergency department.
Participants used the phone keypad to answer recorded questions about retaliation and other experiences related to violence for the eight weeks since the event that brought them to the ED in the first place.
Of the 95 patients enrolled, 42 completed the survey. Results showed that within weeks of being treated in the ED, 56 percent of the adolescents avoided certain places, 47 percent considered retaliating, 38 percent had been threatened and 27 percent carried a weapon.
Involvement in subsequent violence related to the event was common: 18 percent had been beaten up, 21 percent had beaten up someone else, 3 percent had been shot at or stabbed and 3 percent had shot or stabbed someone else.
“Violence among urban adolescents is common and the hospital emergency department is one of the few places adolescents may have contact with the health system,” said Wiebe.
“If those, most at risk, can be identified at the time they receive hospital treatment, it may be possible to intervene at that point and improve their chances for safe living in the future,” says a Children’s Hospital release.
These findings were presented at the Paediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada.