Youth violence secondary prevention initiatives in emergency departments: a systematic review

Youth violence continues to trouble Canadians. Emergency department (ED) visits by youth after a violent injury may represent a "teachable moment," and thus secondary violence prevention interventions may be effective. We conducted a systematic review to identify the success rates of any interventions, the populations likely to benefit and the outcome measures used.

We searched 8 databases (i.e., MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, the ACP Journal Club, DARE and CENTRAL).

Studies were included if they described and evaluated an intervention, were health care-based and targeted youth who were injured by violence. Two blinded investigators selected 15 articles from 181 abstracts. After full-text review, 8 articles were excluded, leaving 7 articles from 4 intervention programs.

All interventions used ED case management of the violently injured patient. One randomized control trial (RCT) demonstrated a significant reduction in reinjury rates (treatment group 8.1% v. control group 20.3%, p = 0.05). Another small RCT found no statistically significant reductions in repeat violence or service use. One retrospective cohort study demonstrated a lower relative risk (RR) in future criminal justice involvement (RR = 0.67, 95% confidence interval 0.45-0.99). A retrospective study of pediatric patients with violent injuries found only 1% of these youth returned with injuries as a result of repeat violence.

Although all 4 case management interventions that we reviewed showed promise in the United States, small sample sizes and incomplete follow-up limited their ability to demonstrate significant decreases in reinjury.

Future research is necessary to help EDs capitalize on the opportunity to effectively reduce youth violence.