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Abstract
Introduction Firearm injuries are the leading cause of death among young people in the USA and disproportionately impact communities of colour and those experiencing socioeconomic distress. Understanding the personal goals of violently injured patients is essential to identifying protective factors and developing interventions that promote them. However, limited research characterising these personal goals exists.
Objective The objective of this study was to use qualitative thematic analysis to analyse and describe the personal goals of young people who enrolled in a region-wide hospital-based violence intervention programme after surviving a violent injury.
Methods A qualitative coding framework was developed, evaluated, and implemented using data from Life Outside of Violence, the St. Louis Area Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programme. Chart abstraction procedures were used to compile qualitative data on Life Outside of Violence participants’ personal goals documented by clinical case managers during individual treatment planning sessions with participants (n=168). Descriptive analyses are reported and implications for practice are discussed.
Results Key findings reveal that (1) violent injury survivors have unmet therapeutic and resource needs, indicating the importance of having service providers with both clinical and case management skills, (2) anger management is a common clinical goal, and (3) employment opportunities are a common resource need.
Conclusions Findings from this study inform the implementation of the Life Outside of Violence programme and offer a roadmap to other hospital-based violence intervention programmes operating nation-wide. Our results provide insight into participants’ needs, desires, and motivations, allowing unique opportunities for improved participant engagement and service delivery.
- Public Health
- Trauma Systems
- Firearm
- Violence
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request.
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Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request.
Footnotes
Twitter @KMueller_MD
Contributors KM is the guarantor for this article and accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish.
Funding Dr. Mueller was supported in part by the Emergency Medicine Foundation and the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine at the Aspen Institute (no award/grant number). The Life Outside Violence Program was funded in part by the Missouri Foundation for Health (no award/grant number). The Life Outside Violence Program is supported by: Barnes Jewish Hospital; SSM Health Cardinal; Glennon Children’s Hospital; SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital; Saint Louis Children’s Hospital; Saint Louis University; Washington University in Saint Louis.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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