Childhood head injuries linked to subsequent interpersonal violence

A study just published in the journal Pediatrics documents the association of interpersonal violence in young adulthood with earlier head injury. The authors state:

"The purpose of this study was to examine differences in interpersonal violence among individuals who reported a head injury compared with those who did not report a head injury."

They examined 8 years of data for 850 kids in 4 public high schools in a Midwestern city, looking specifically at the years from mid-adolescence to the transition into young adulthood, correlating levels of interpersonal violence with reports of head injury. Multivariate regression analyses, controlling for variables such as race, gender, and previous violence, as well as risk behaviors such as alcohol and marijuana use, were used to determine whether head injury was associated with subsequent violent behavior. What did the data show?

"Participants who had ever experienced a head injury before young adulthood reported more interpersonal violence in young adulthood than participants who had never had a head injury. In multivariate analyses, respondents who had a head injury in the past year reported more subsequent interpersonal violence than respondents who had not had a head injury."

As noted in our Parents' Guide To Brain Health even a mild traumatic brain injury can set in motion a cascade of effects that compromise brain function for cognition, impulse control and regulation of emotions. There are remedial measures that can help if the problem is recognized and properly assessed when we keep in mind the authors' conclusion:

"Our findings support other studies that link history of head injury to later interpersonal violence."