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Child physical abuse and COVID-19: Trends from nine pediatric trauma centers
BACKGROUND: Economic, social, and psychologic stressors are associated with an increased risk for abusive injuries in children. Prolonged physical proximity between adults and children under conditions of severe external stress, such as witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic with “shelter-in-place o...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Published by Elsevier Inc.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8572366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34758909 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2021.09.050 |
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author | Russell, Katie W. Acker, Shannon N. Ignacio, Romeo C. Lofberg, Katrine M. Garvey, Erin M. Chao, Stephanie D. Bliss, David W. Smith, Caitlin A. Nehra, Deepika Anderson, Melissa L. Bunnell, Brittney L. Shahi, Niti Perry, John M. Evans, Lauren L. Kwong, Jacky Z. Tobias, Joseph Rohan, Autumn Pickett, Kaci L. Kaar, Jill L. Kastenberg, Zachary J. Laskey, Antoinette L. Scaife, Eric R. Jensen, Aaron R. |
author_facet | Russell, Katie W. Acker, Shannon N. Ignacio, Romeo C. Lofberg, Katrine M. Garvey, Erin M. Chao, Stephanie D. Bliss, David W. Smith, Caitlin A. Nehra, Deepika Anderson, Melissa L. Bunnell, Brittney L. Shahi, Niti Perry, John M. Evans, Lauren L. Kwong, Jacky Z. Tobias, Joseph Rohan, Autumn Pickett, Kaci L. Kaar, Jill L. Kastenberg, Zachary J. Laskey, Antoinette L. Scaife, Eric R. Jensen, Aaron R. |
author_sort | Russell, Katie W. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Economic, social, and psychologic stressors are associated with an increased risk for abusive injuries in children. Prolonged physical proximity between adults and children under conditions of severe external stress, such as witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic with “shelter-in-place orders”, may be associated with additional increased risk for child physical abuse. We hypothesized that child physical abuse rates and associated severity of injury would increase during the early months of the pandemic as compared to the prior benchmark period. METHODS: We conducted a nine-center retrospective review of suspected child physical abuse admissions across the Western Pediatric Surgery Research Consortium. Cases were identified for the period of April 1-June 30, 2020 (COVID-19) and compared to the identical period in 2019. We collected patient demographics, injury characteristics, and outcome data. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in child physical abuse cases between the time periods in the consortium as a whole or at individual hospitals. There were no differences between the study periods with regard to patient characteristics, injury types or severity, resource utilization, disposition, or mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Apparent rates of new injuries related to child physical abuse did not increase early in the COVID-19 pandemic. While this may suggest that pediatric physical abuse was not impacted by pandemic restrictions and stresses, it is possible that under-reporting, under-detection, or delays in presentation of abusive injuries increased during the pandemic. Long-term follow-up of subsequent rates and severity of child abuse is needed to assess for unrecognized injuries that may have occurred. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8572366 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Published by Elsevier Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85723662021-11-08 Child physical abuse and COVID-19: Trends from nine pediatric trauma centers Russell, Katie W. Acker, Shannon N. Ignacio, Romeo C. Lofberg, Katrine M. Garvey, Erin M. Chao, Stephanie D. Bliss, David W. Smith, Caitlin A. Nehra, Deepika Anderson, Melissa L. Bunnell, Brittney L. Shahi, Niti Perry, John M. Evans, Lauren L. Kwong, Jacky Z. Tobias, Joseph Rohan, Autumn Pickett, Kaci L. Kaar, Jill L. Kastenberg, Zachary J. Laskey, Antoinette L. Scaife, Eric R. Jensen, Aaron R. J Pediatr Surg Wptc Papers BACKGROUND: Economic, social, and psychologic stressors are associated with an increased risk for abusive injuries in children. Prolonged physical proximity between adults and children under conditions of severe external stress, such as witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic with “shelter-in-place orders”, may be associated with additional increased risk for child physical abuse. We hypothesized that child physical abuse rates and associated severity of injury would increase during the early months of the pandemic as compared to the prior benchmark period. METHODS: We conducted a nine-center retrospective review of suspected child physical abuse admissions across the Western Pediatric Surgery Research Consortium. Cases were identified for the period of April 1-June 30, 2020 (COVID-19) and compared to the identical period in 2019. We collected patient demographics, injury characteristics, and outcome data. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in child physical abuse cases between the time periods in the consortium as a whole or at individual hospitals. There were no differences between the study periods with regard to patient characteristics, injury types or severity, resource utilization, disposition, or mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Apparent rates of new injuries related to child physical abuse did not increase early in the COVID-19 pandemic. While this may suggest that pediatric physical abuse was not impacted by pandemic restrictions and stresses, it is possible that under-reporting, under-detection, or delays in presentation of abusive injuries increased during the pandemic. Long-term follow-up of subsequent rates and severity of child abuse is needed to assess for unrecognized injuries that may have occurred. Published by Elsevier Inc. 2022-02 2021-10-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8572366/ /pubmed/34758909 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2021.09.050 Text en © 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Wptc Papers Russell, Katie W. Acker, Shannon N. Ignacio, Romeo C. Lofberg, Katrine M. Garvey, Erin M. Chao, Stephanie D. Bliss, David W. Smith, Caitlin A. Nehra, Deepika Anderson, Melissa L. Bunnell, Brittney L. Shahi, Niti Perry, John M. Evans, Lauren L. Kwong, Jacky Z. Tobias, Joseph Rohan, Autumn Pickett, Kaci L. Kaar, Jill L. Kastenberg, Zachary J. Laskey, Antoinette L. Scaife, Eric R. Jensen, Aaron R. Child physical abuse and COVID-19: Trends from nine pediatric trauma centers |
title | Child physical abuse and COVID-19: Trends from nine pediatric trauma centers |
title_full | Child physical abuse and COVID-19: Trends from nine pediatric trauma centers |
title_fullStr | Child physical abuse and COVID-19: Trends from nine pediatric trauma centers |
title_full_unstemmed | Child physical abuse and COVID-19: Trends from nine pediatric trauma centers |
title_short | Child physical abuse and COVID-19: Trends from nine pediatric trauma centers |
title_sort | child physical abuse and covid-19: trends from nine pediatric trauma centers |
topic | Wptc Papers |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8572366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34758909 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2021.09.050 |
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