Primary prevention of violence in high school pupils in Scotland: Evaluation of the Medics Against Violence programme

Background.

Medics Against Violence (MAV) is a primary prevention programme delivered voluntarily by healthcare professionals to high-school pupils during a single session. MAV adopts an educational approach which aims to change attitudes towards violence in order to reduce perpetration and victimisation of violence.

Methods.

A mixed-methods approach was adopted to conduct outcome and process evaluations. The outcome evaluation used validated questionnaires in four participating schools to examine change in attitudes towards violence and empathy from baseline, immediately post-intervention and at 3-month follow-up. The process evaluation consisted of focus groups with school pupils, and open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with MAV volunteers to explore experiences of MAV and areas for improvement.

Results.

There was a small but significant reduction in mean attitude toward violence score immediately post-intervention (p=.<001) however, this was not sustained at 3-months. In addition, there was no significant change in empathy scores from baseline. During the focus groups pupils generally expressed anti-violent attitudes, although they were more likely to support the use of reactive violence. The pupils particularly valued the use of real footage and the opportunity to talk to healthcare professionals. Volunteers felt more support was needed, and noted a number of areas for improvement.

Conclusions.

MAV had little effect on attitudes toward violence or empathy scores. This raises issues of how to capture the effects of MAV. Recommendations are made for further development in terms of establishing the target audience (i.e. potential victims or perpetrators), focusing on reactive violence, and addressing the psychological consequences of violence.