RE: Systematic review in the field of Child Protection

["Lisa fontes" <lfontes@xxxxxxx>]

The Newbergers from Boston did research in the 80's and 90's on
non-accidental and accidental injury. My memory is that they found a
correlation between child maltreatment and "accidental" injuries
(poisoning, falls, car accidents, etc) and ended up calling it "trauma
X". That is, kids who are at risk for abuse are also at risk for other
kinds of injuries, and so these might well be addressed together.

And I am prone to forgetting so anyone who wants to know what they
"really" said should look it up!
Lisa Fontes

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
[mailto:owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu] On Behalf Of
Brian Morgan
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 11:45 AM
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
Subject: Re: Systematic review in the field of Child Protection

How can the review take place if the accuracy of the diagnosis of 
non-accidental injury remains
uncertain?

Shouldn't data relating to false-positive/false negative assessments of 
whether abuse has occurred
be collected first?

There have been seminal cases in the criminal and high courts recently 
and there's little
evidence that the impact of these findings is being considered within 
child maltreatment research circles.

In fact the opposite seems to be the case.

I may be wrong.

Brian Morgan
Freelance Journalist
Cardiff

Leona Bull wrote:

> A systematic review on the detection of non-accidental injury amongst 
> children attending Accident & Emergency departments has recently 
> commenced at the Institute of Child Health, University College of 
> London, UK.  The aims of the project are to determine:
>
> The patterns of health service use by children suffering from 
> non-accidental injury. How and when do children with non-accidental 
> injury present to health services?
>
> The accuracy of alternative diagnostic strategies for detecting 
> non-accidental physical injury in children attending A&E.  This 
> includes screening tests, such as checking that the injury is 
> consistent with the reported history of how it occurred, and clinical 
> tests, such as specific patterns of bruising.
>
> The uptake, acceptability, and health service resource implications, 
> of different diagnostic and confirmatory procedures for non-accidental

> physical injury in children.
>
> If anyone should know of any relevant studies or data sources (I am 
> particularly interested in the grey literature and pre-published 
> work), then I would be most grateful if they would contact me.
>
> With thanks
> Dr Leona Bull
>
>