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In all, 35% of firearm-injured kids received a new mental health diagnosis in the year after the incident, compared with 26% of those hurt in crashes.

Most of these new diagnoses were related to substance misuse problems with drugs or alcohol, or stress-related conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder—both of which were twice as likely to be diagnosed in young firearm injury survivors than in their peers who had been in vehicles that crashed.

The new data were presented at the National Research Conference on Firearm Injury Prevention, and published recently in the Annals of Surgery, by a team led by Peter Ehrlich, M.D., M.Sc., director of pediatric trauma care at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and a professor of pediatric surgery at Michigan Medicine.

Ehrlich and his colleagues studied data from nearly 1,500 firearm-injured children ages 3 to 17 and nearly 3,700 similar children injured in crashes, who sought emergency care between 2010 and 2016. The injured children all had insurance through Medicaid or the CHIP program, which together cover about 40% of all American children.

Boys accounted for more than 80% of both populations of injured children, and the average age was 15. But 65% of the children hurt by firearms were Black, while 52% of those injured in crashes were non-Hispanic white children.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-12-firearm-injuries-kids-mental-scars.html

Does it say if it's any case of firearm injury? Intended attacks and accidents count the same?

Reading over this, it’s unlikely that the firearm injury is the cause of most of the substance abuse and mental health issues. Far more likely is that the factors that increase the likelihood of getting shot as a child also lead to the other problems.

It makes me wonder about these kids lives- it’s like they are growing up in a war zone.

Wow almost dying fucks your head up. Never seen that one coming.

Well presumably some portion of these firearms injuries are the result of violence, so you should compare it to other forms of violence rather than generic accidents. It makes sense that people who experience violence are more likely to have mental health issues than people who experience motor vehicle accidents.

So... America?

I agree but it also says it’s more than motor vehicle crashes. What if people get the same level of injury in gunshots and car crashes? Why does one cause greater harm than the other. Definitely worth finding out but the “almost dying” doesn’t explain the differences.

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Another firearm related post by u/wagamaga on r/science. There's a pattern here.

Is it from all of that lead in bullet?

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Here's a story boiling down the study - https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/industry-dx/firearm-injuries-kids-leave-lasting-mental-scars-study-finds