Children exhibiting or at risk for exhibiting aggressive behavior benefit from attending violence prevention classes at school, according to a new review of published studies.

The most useful school-based violence prevention programs seem to be those that teach children how to get along better with people - teaching them skills such as listening, thinking about the feelings of others, working together, and learning how to be assertive without being aggressive.

“Early aggressive behavior is a risk factor for later violence and criminal behavior,” notes the report in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates research in health care.

Despite two decades of use, questions remain regarding the effectiveness of school-based violence prevention programs.

Dr. Julie Mytton from the University of the West of England in Bristol and colleagues reviewed 56 studies that examined the effectiveness of school-based violence prevention programs aimed at children identified as aggressive or at risk of being aggressive.

They found that overall these programs “do appear to produce improvements in behavior” in both older and younger children and in both boys-only groups and mixed-sex groups.

Aggressive behavior was significantly reduced in “intervention” children as opposed to non-intervention children for up to 12 months after the intervention. There was also a drop in school or agency disciplinary actions in response to aggressive behavior in children attending violence prevention classes.

Subgroup analyses hint that interventions designed to improve relationship or social skills may be more effective than those designed to teach skills of “non-response to provocative situations.”

Mytton and colleagues say further research is needed to see if the apparent benefits of these programs can be realized outside of schools and maintained over time.

They also note that none of the studies collected data on violent injury, “so we can not be certain of the extent to which an improvement in behavior translates into an actual injury reduction.”

SOURCE: The Cochrane Library 2006.