Nationwide study shows under-reporting of child abuse
August 5, 2008 - Two articles in Pediatrics released this month show that pediatricians under-report cases of suspected child abuse. The studies came from the Child Abuse Reporting Experience Study (CARES), a federally-funded study led by Emalee Flaherty, MD, head of the Protective Services team at Children’s Memorial Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
In the current study, more than 400 pediatric primary care clinicians collected information about children they treated with injuries. Among the 15,000 injured children evaluated by CARES clinicians, they did not report 27 percent of those children they were very suspicious had injuries caused by child abuse. A subset of the clinicians were interviewed about how they made decisions to report or not report. The clinicians said they did not report some suspicious injuries if they were familiar with the family and the family had always acted “appropriately.” Others expressed concern with Child Protective Services and its ability to manage the child’s care – believing the child’s care would be compromised if they reported the child’s case to protective services. Others believe they can do a better job than protective services if they manage the alleged abuse.
Findings from the study suggest that there needs to be more interaction and trust between the child’s primary care provider and Child Protective Services. “Physicians don’t want to cause harm. Their perception of potential harm may be a misperception of that harm based on a few cases that were mismanaged or lack of feedback from Child Protective Services,” said Flaherty. “If we can help better educate clinicians on how to assess possible child abuse and educate Child Protective Services on how to better respond to these reports, children who have been abused will be more accurately identified and those children who need protection will be protected.”
Contact: Julie Pesch, Public Affairs, at 773.880.4500