Minimum criteria for reporting child abuse from health care settings.

ABSTRACT

We evaluated how consistently clinicians of two hospitals reported child abuse and neglect, and the utility of specific, operational criteria for assessing hospital clinicians' compliance with the child abuse reporting laws. To evaluate clinicians' compliance, we audited the medical records of 85 children who had been reported to a child protective service (CPS) agency by clinicians at either of two hospitals and who had been seen at that hospital at least once before the index report of abuse. The time elapsed from first hospital visit to index abuse report among the 85 children averaged 4.3 years. In the children's records, we identified 28 earlier reports to the CPS agency and four episodes that met criteria we developed but that had not been reported. Thus, application of specific criteria resulted in the finding that 28 (88 percent) of 32 suspected abuse episodes were actually reported to the CPS agency (95 percent confidence interval 76 to 99 percent). In a second phase of the study, we compared the content of 45 reported episodes of child abuse (4) index reports and four earlier reports) to the criteria in order to evaluate their utility. Thirty-five episodes (78 percent) met one of the criteria. Review of the remaining 10 episodes led to the development of one new criterion. We conclude that, although it has been estimated that hospital personnel nationwide report to CPS agencies only 69 percent of the child abuse cases they identify, clinicians at the hospitals we studied reported 88 percent of documented episodes of suspected abuse. We also conclude that specific, operational criteria can help in the assessment of hospital clinicians' compliance with their obligation to report child abuse and neglect.