A Randomised Controlled Trial to Evaluate a Violence Brief Intervention (VBI) for Adult Male Patients With Facial Injuries Sustained as a Result of Interpersonal Violence

This study is a randomised controlled trial of a new brief intervention with young (16-29) adult male patients who have a facial injury sustained as a result of interpersonal violence (fighting or assaults). It will be undertaken at the Maxillofacial outpatient trauma clinic at the Southern General Hospital, Glasgow. The major risk factors associated with facial injury in Scotland are male gender, young age, interpersonal violence and alcohol. Previous research with facial injury patients attending this clinic has shown that an Alcohol Brief Intervention (ABI) is effective in helping reduce alcohol consumption, so all patients are now offered ABI as standard practice. ABI is delivered by trained nurses from Addiction Services. This will not be withdrawn. In addition we wish to offer some patients a Violence Brief Intervention (VBI). This will be delivered by the same nurses who deliver the ABI. The study is randomised so only those selected at random will receive this extra intervention and all others will receive treatment as normal (ABI only). VBI is a short psychological intervention which uses Brief Motivational Interviewing (BMI) to encourage reflection of involvement in violence and consideration of strategies to avoid future violence. The intervention also compares participants' attitudes towards violence to those of their peers. The intervention takes about 15 minutes, and patients will be involved for an additional 30-45 minutes longer than normal when they attend the clinic, including consent and baseline data collection. Patients will be followed up by telephone at 1, 3 and 6 months, and asked a suite of questions which will take approximately 15 minutes on each occasion. We wish to determine whether a VBI of this type has any effect on attitudes to violence or propensity for involvement in violence or on reinjury, examined through self report measures and routinely collected health and criminal justice data at 12 months post intervention.