This study evaluated whether incorporation of an abuse assessment protocol into the routine procedures of the prenatal clinics of a large urban public health department led to increased referral for an assessment, identification, and documentation of abuse.
The evaluation was conducted at three matched prenatal clinics serving 12,000 maternity patients per year. Two clinics used the abuse protocol, and one did not. An audit was performed at the clinics on a randomly selected sample of 540 maternity patient charts for the 15 months before the protocol was initiated and of 540 records for the 15 months after the protocol was introduced. Ninety-six percent of the patients in the sample were Latina. The study found that at the clinics using the protocol, abuse assessment increased from 0 to 88 percent. Detection of abuse increased from 0.8 percent to 7 percent. There were no changes at the comparison clinic. The study concluded that incorporation of an abuse assessment protocol into the routine procedures of public health department prenatal clinics increases the assessment, identification, and documentation of and referral for abuse among pregnant women. Thus, an abuse protocol should be a routine part of maternity care. (publisher abstract modified)