Improvement in quality of life among violently injured youth after a brief intervention

Youth directly exposed to violence are at risk for experiencing elevated rates of emotional and behavioral problems, revictimization, and becoming future perpetrators of violence. Violence intervention and prevention programs throughout the country attempt to alleviate some of this burden. To date, outcomes have been positive but largely qualitative. Patient-reported outcomes offer objective measures to evaluate well-being in youth victimization. Our primary aim was to use objective patient-reported quantitative measures to assess the change in health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) scores of youth who attended a violence intervention summer camp. This is the first study to evaluate such measures in youth victims of violence during an intervention.

Eight- to 18-year-old youth who attended a violence intervention summer camp in a Midwest urban city over a two-year period participated in a HRQOL survey at baseline and at the end of programming (6 weeks). Consented youth used an electronic platform to answer validated HRQOL measures. Mean differences in scores from baseline to six weeks were calculated and reported.

A total of 64 youth were recruited and consented to the study. Average change in scores improved in most HRQOL domains with the largest change in scores observed in school functioning (mean diff, +5.00), emotional functioning (mean diff, +5.26), and patient anxiety (mean diff, +3.04). Only participant anger scored worse following the intervention (mean diff, -2.26).

A community-based summer program hosting violently injured youth resulted in overall improved HRQOL. This was especially significant in the school, anxiety, and emotional domains. Future evaluation into the effectiveness of youth programs should measure HRQOL to identify at-risk participants and to measure effectiveness.

Therapeutic/care management study, level III.