Assessment of trauma symptoms among adolescent assault victims

To identify and evaluate the effectiveness of an assessment tool that could be used to assess the psychological needs of youth injured by community violence.

The Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC) was administered to 120 adolescents participating in Project Ujima, a hospital-based program providing Emergency Department support and home-based psychosocial follow-up to victims of violent crime (mean age = 14.8 years; 72% male; 70% African-American, 19% white, 8% Latino). Participants' TSCC scores were compared with normative data using one-sample, two-tailed, Student's t-tests. Comparisons of TSCC scale scores were also made based on participant age, gender, ethnicity, and injury type using one-way multivariate analysis of variance.

Seventeen percent of the participants scored in the clinical range on the Underreporting Scale of the TSCC, reflecting a tendency to deny common thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Elevations on all clinical scales were modest. Males showed elevations on Underreporting and decreased trauma symptoms, in comparison to normative data and to females in the sample.

The reported low levels of symptomatology among this sample of youth may be due, in part, to a defensive response style.