January 7, 2004

Violence Begets Behavioral Problems in Kids

New research suggests that children who witness violence or are victims of it are more likely than other children to have behavior problems, according to a Dec. 31 press release from the Center for the Advancement of Health.

The study by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York involved 175 children ages 9 to 12 from an urban pediatric primary-care clinic.

The children were interviewed, along with their mothers, to determine whether they had been victims of violence, witnessed violence first-hand, or heard about violent incidents from other people or the media.

Researchers then used questionnaires to measure the children's behavior. The results showed that 18 percent of the children who were victims of violence and 12 percent of those who witnessed it were at the clinical cutoff point for psychosocial maladjustment.

"There is a relationship between the physical proximity of exposure to violence and psychosocial maladjustment among urban school-aged children," said Oscar H. Purugganan, M.D., M.P.H., who led the study. "Those who were direct victims of violence had the most behavioral problems, followed by those who were witnesses, and then by those who were exposed through other people's report or the media."

The study is published in the December 2003 issue of the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.