Violence prevention: Reaching adolescents with the message

Objective. To identify an effective medium for communicating with adolescen ts in a large-scale, cost-effective violence prevention program. Methods. A set of youth violence prevention programs was established at The Stamford Hospital, a level II trauma center. The traveling version of the program was presented to middle school students in four parts: 1) a rap mus ic video created by our violence prevention staff, 2) a facilitated discuss ion about dealing with anger, 3) a video of a trauma resuscitation in our e mergency department, and 4) a commercial video of a teenage boy paralyzed a fter a gunshot wound. A written questionnaire with a five-point rating scal e (1 to 5) was used to survey the audience 1 month after the program, The s urvey assessed the respondents' recall of each part of the program and the perceptions of the value of each part in identifying the problem of violenc e and reducing violent behavior. Results, Of 99 respondents, the highest ratings for retention, problem iden tification, and impact were given to the commercial video (combined average category ranking of 11.391) and the rap music video (11.182), The trauma r esuscitation video and the discussion of anger were ranked as being less ef fective (10.253 and 9.383, respectively). The audience seemed to comprehend the main point of the program and ranked the program, as a whole, higher t han any of the parts when measured by success at problem identification and impact. Conclusion. Effective communication with adolescents is possible through ma ny avenues. Children of the video age respond well to visual material. A vi olence prevention program should incorporate effective multimedia presentat ions. A variety of methods in combination proves to be most effective.