Mental health of children and teens victims of violence: a critical review of the literature

Abstract

It is about a critical literature review that aimed to identify and analyze bibliographicalproduction in Brazilian journals on the consequences of violence on the children and adolescentsmental health who are victims of violence. It has been performed the search of the articles publishedbetween January 2002 and December 2010 in Scielo and Lilacs electronic databases. Data wereanalyzed and distributed into four groups: the researched articles, the methodological approach,the several types of violence and its risk factors, and violence and its consequences for adolescentchildren mental health. Fivetten articles were found. It was noted that most of the articles had theteens as the target population and that the studies were performed primarily in schools and healthservices; the consequences of violence for children and youth mental health were addressed inarticles as they used the instrument to collect data or according to the behavior of this population;the symptoms most often reported by the authors are depressive behavior, anxiety, and antisocialbehavior. We can see the lack of research that report interventions to prevent or treat the consequencesof violence on the mental health of this population.