Factors associated with successful mentor matching in an intervention study of youth violence

One challenge of conducting intervention studies is ensuring that study participants are exposed to the intervention. For example, in our randomized controlled trial of Take Charge!, a mentor-implemented and research-informed violence prevention program that partners with one-on-one community-based mentoring agencies, only 50% of intervention youth with fight-related injuries were successfully matched with a mentor. We examined the differences between matched (n = 49) and unmatched (n = 49) youth with regard to demographics, time from injury to study enrollment, perceived seriousness of injury, belief that future injury can be avoided, and household chaos. Youth who were successfully matched with a mentor were more likely to perceive the injury as very serious or somewhat serious compared with unmatched youth (95.9% vs. 79.6%, p =.028). All other factors were not significantly associated with successful mentor matching. Future violence prevention interventions should consider youth perceptions as a factor that may influence the completion of desired interventions.