Child Maltreatment最新文献

Child welfare caseworkers have significant decision-making authority, ultimately determining if allegations are substantiated, if a case should be opened for ongoing services, and if removal from the parental home is required. This research considers the role of caseworker turnover on these decisions, considering decisions for 372,968 unique screened-in reports assessed by 2,128 unique child welfare caseworkers in Wisconsin. Specifically, this study uses logistic regressions to estimate the likelihood of maltreatment substantiation, case opening, child removal, and the timeliness of the assessment as a function of the caseworker's timeline to departure from the public child welfare field, net of case-related characteristics, caseworker demographics, and county/year fixed effects. Results indicate that the odds of substantiation, case opening, and timely assessment are lower as caseworkers near departure. Findings expand our understanding of the consequences of turnover, highlighting how it influences case decisions and providing insight into effects on child and family well-being.

Child maltreatment is a well-established risk factor for self-harm, yet the affective processes underlying this association remain unclear. This study examines how empathy relates to the association between early childhood maltreatment and lifetime self-harm thoughts. Data from 303 adults were stratified based on the presence or absence of maltreatment history in early childhood. Self-reports of lifetime self-harm thoughts in adulthood and empathy during adolescence were examined in both groups using generalized additive models to assess non-linear relationships. Adults with early childhood maltreatment history were more likely to report self-harm thoughts than those without the history (χ² = 14.87, p < .01). A significant nonlinear association was observed between empathy and self-harm thoughts (effective degrees of freedom (edf) = 2.14, χ² = 9.67, p = .02), such that predicted probabilities of self-harm thoughts were lowest at moderate levels of empathy for both groups. Risk for self-harm thoughts was highest among individuals with early childhood maltreatment history and low or high empathy. While a moderate level of empathy can be protective from early childhood maltreatment, both low and high levels of empathy appear to increase the risk for self-harm thoughts. Findings suggest the need to further investigate the role of empathy as a "risky strength" among adults, particularly among those with histories of childhood maltreatment.

Background: The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) is widely used, but retrospective self-report measures may be susceptible to bias especially in the context of pathology. Therefore, we aimed to validate the CTQ in the context of reduced psychopathology following trauma-focused treatment. Methods: We analyzed 149 outpatients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to childhood abuse. Participants received one of three variants of prolonged exposure. The CTQ was administered at baseline and six months later. The internal consistency of the CTQ was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, inter-item and item-total correlations. Convergent validity was assessed with the clinician administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5). The consistency of CTQ scores over time was analyzed using linear mixed models and intra-class correlation coefficients. Results: Most CTQ subscales demonstrated high internal consistency and satisfactory inter-item and item-total correlations except for physical neglect and minimization/denial subscales. CTQ subscales physical and sexual abuse exhibited adequate convergent validity with the CAPS-5. None of the CTQ subscales mean score changed significantly from baseline to follow-up. Agreement between the baseline and follow-up assessment within-persons was moderate at item-level but good at subscale-level except for subscale minimization/denial. Minimization/denial at baseline and change in symptomatology during treatment were not significantly related to change in CTQ subscale scores. Conclusions: These findings support the use of the CTQ subscales to retrospectively assess childhood maltreatment.

In summer 2024, the Children's Bureau revised the rules that govern data suppression in datasets from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). To minimize the risk of re-identification, researchers had previously been unable to identify counties with fewer than 1000 annual maltreatment cases. Under the new data suppression rule, county identifiers will only be suppressed for counties with fewer than 700 cases. In this report, we document the consequences of this shift for research data access and re-identification risks, showing that reducing the data suppression threshold increased the number of identifiable counties from 835 to 1096 (a 31.3% increase) and doubled the number of identifiable rural counties. The percentage of reported children who face a particularly elevated re-identification risk due to having unique demographic characteristics increased from 0.7% to 1.0%.

Children's disclosure of abuse constitutes a multifaceted process i.e. critical for professionals to address promptly, ensuring the immediate protection of the child. Little is known about the patterns of disclosure among preschool-aged children. The present study investigated disclosure patterns in 131 forensic interviews with preschool-aged allegedly abused children, all of whom reported abuse during the interview. Specifically, we examined the point in the interview at which children disclosed the abuse, the types of questions asked by the interviewer prior to the disclosure, whether the children provided new information about the abuse in response to subsequent questions after disclosure, and the interviewers' follow-up prompts following the children's disclosure. The findings showed an average of 88.9 turns before disclosure. One-third of the children disclosed abuse during the pre-substantive phase of the interview, with almost half of these disclosing early. Even children aged 3 provided forensically relevant information across multiple turns, comparable with the 5-year-olds. However, the preschool-aged children were interviewed using techniques that were leading and involved lengthy sessions, which did not align with best practices. This may raise questions about the validity and representativeness of the findings. Implications for practice are discussed.

Children often enter foster care (FC) with mental health (MH) concerns. Failure or delay in initiating treatment may result in overreliance on acute MH services. This report leverages 2010-2019 linked administrative child welfare and healthcare claims data for 13,562 Wisconsin children entering FC at ages 3-16 years to describe patterns of MH services during FC and examine how MH service use varies by demographic characteristics and maltreatment, FC, and MH histories. Two-thirds of children received MH assessment or treatment during FC, of whom 61% initiated services within 3 months of entry. Younger age, kinship care, and absence of MH history were negatively associated with onset of assessment and treatment. One in 7 children used acute MH services, with higher rates for Black children, adolescents, and youth in non-family settings. Timely MH assessment and treatment is important for foster children's wellbeing, but current guidelines may lack accountability and monitoring mechanisms.

This study drew on the biological sensitivity to context model (Ellis & Boyce, 2008) and polyvagal theory (Porges, 2007) to evaluate the moderating influence of children's autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation on pathways from child emotional abuse (CEA) and child physical abuse (CPA) to later dissociative symptoms in adolescence. Participants were 232 youth (50.2% assigned female at birth, 45.9% Latine) who reported on their experiences of CEA and CPA at ages 6, 8, and 10 years. Resting cardiography measures of respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA) and pre-ejection period (PEP) assessed children's parasympathetic and sympathetic activation, respectively, at these same ages. Youth reported on their dissociative symptoms at age 17. Parasympathetic activation qualified predictions from CEA to dissociative symptoms with relatively high RSA sensitizing children to CEA effects. Sympathetic activation qualified interactive predictions from both CEA and CPA to dissociative symptoms, but in different directions depending on the level of CPA. These findings suggest that resting ANS regulation may sensitize children to the effects of CEA and/or CPA on later dissociative symptoms in adolescence.

The Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAPI) is a measure widely used to assess caregivers' likelihood of physically abusing their child. Its psychometric properties require further assessment, specifically among highest-risk caregivers known to child protective services. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the criterion validity, construct validity, and responsiveness of the CAPI Abuse scale among child-welfare system involved caregivers of children aged 0-12. We searched PsycINFO, PubMed and Web of Science for articles published in English between 1986 and January 2023 that reported data on CAPI psychometric properties among child-welfare system involved caregiver samples. Articles were evaluated using the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) guidelines for systematic reviews of patient reported outcome measures. Twenty-eight articles reported on CAPI Abuse scale construct validity (i.e., convergent, and known-groups validity), criterion validity and/or responsiveness. Study quality was overall very good. CAPI validity and responsiveness were rated sufficient. CAPI was responsive to post-treatment changes as well as intervention group differences for several tertiary interventions. Despite methodological limitations in the evidence, this review found that the overall strength of CAPI Abuse scale validity and responsiveness evidence was moderate. These findings support further evaluation and CAPI use in clinical and research settings.

The present study examined profiles of service needs among caregivers with child welfare involvement. Participants were 589 caregivers of children 12-36 months old at baseline from the second National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Latent class analysis was used to profile unique characteristics of and changes in caregivers' needs across an 18-month period. Four classes of caregiver needs were identified with differential risks for maltreatment. Compared to caregivers with "No Needs" (25%), caregivers with "Chronic Multi-Type" needs (25%) and "Parenting Only" needs (26%) were both significantly more likely to engage in psychological aggression, physical abuse, and neglect. Caregivers with "Changing Needs" (24%) were significantly more likely to engage in psychological aggression and neglect. Involvement with child welfare services represents a critical opportunity to offer support to families, especially among those with multiple chronic needs, needing parenting skills, and those with needs that are unstable over time.

Childhood physical and/or sexual abuse are associated with negative physical and mental health outcomes in adulthood. Protective factors may contribute to resilience and reduce the risk of these adult health outcomes. This study aims to determine if the presence of a protective adult can mitigate the association between childhood abuse and negative adult health outcomes. Data were obtained from the 2021 and 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (n = 83,495). Binary logistic regression was used to compare the odds of health outcomes in adults who experienced abuse before age 18 compared to those who did not, adjusting for the presence of a protective adult and socio-demographic, socioeconomic, and health behavior factors. Childhood physical and/or sexual abuse were associated with higher odds of physical and mental health conditions in adulthood. Adjusting for the presence of a protective adult partially attenuated the odds of many adult health outcomes. Understanding protective factors associated with childhood abuse may improve targeted outreach and provide helpful direction for the development of effective programs for children experiencing abuse.