Abstract

Task Force on Adolescent Assault Victim Needs.

For many years, it has been routine to treat victims of child abuse, suicide attempts, and sexual assault via multidisciplinary care protocols. Although violently injured adolescents have become commonplace in our nation’s emergency departments, no care guidelines exist that address the unique needs of these patients. The convened a task force to develop such guidelines for providers of hospital-based pediatric emergency and trauma care. The work of the task force was guided by the premise that comprehensive care of violently injured adolescents must address their psycho-social needs as well as their physical injuries.

This task force report summarizes the epidemiology of violent injury in adolescence and its physical and emotional consequences (“Part I”), and it outlines appropriate care for the victims from their arrival in the emergency department to their discharge from the hospital (“Part II”). Care of violently injured adolescents that follows these guidelines is likely to promote full recovery and to reduce the risks of reinjury and reactive perpetration.