NCJ Number
216201
Journal
Child Maltreatment Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2006 Pages: 361-369
Date Published
November 2006
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This study used a survey of members of the American Academy of Pediatrics to examine pediatricians' experience with child protective services (CPS) and factors associated with identifying and reporting suspected child physical abuse.
Abstract
The findings were similar to other studies in indicating that most pediatricians believed that overall the children involved in their reporting benefited from the involvement of CPS; however, the percentage of pediatricians who reported negative consequences from their reporting (56 percent) was greater than the 33 percent of a small sample of Chicago-area physicians who reported they had experienced adverse consequences from reporting to CPS. Losing patients was the most common negative consequence for pediatricians in both studies. Two percent of the pediatricians in the current study had been sued for malpractice because of a report to CPS. The majority of pediatricians indicated that CPS did not keep them informed of the progress and disposition of the investigations. Only a small number of pediatricians acknowledged that they had not reported all injuries to children they suspected had been caused by abuse. Further, the findings suggest that pediatricians' personal experiences and beliefs related to child abuse influence the way they identify and manage their suspicions of child abuse. The survey was a self-administered questionnaire mailed to pediatricians between October 2002 and May 2003. Of 1,603 mailings, 851 pediatricians (53 percent) provided completed questionnaires. The questionnaire solicited information on the respondent's past year's experience in identifying child abuse, career experience with child abuse cases, confidence in identifying and managing child abuse cases, and a decision on whether to report a suspicion of abuse based on an ambiguous child abuse vignette. 3 tables and 29 references