Battered Child Syndrome: Review of 130 Patients With Controls

Abstract

The medical and social service records of the 130 battered children under 10 years of age admitted to San Francisco General Hospital during a six-year period, July 1, 1965, to June 30, 1971, were reviewed. Only children with physical injuries were included. A control group was selected from concurrent admissions. The findings showed a steadily rising number of admissions for child abuse. Many of the children suffered from emotional, physical and medical neglect as well as intentional trauma and 44% had been abused previously. Six children died. Sixty-three percent of the battered children were less than 2 years old. Their parents were significantly younger than parents of controls and also much more transient. White children rather than nonwhite children were battered more often than expected when compared to the ethnic distribution of the control group.

Integrating child injury and abuse-neglect research: Common histories, etiologies, and solutions.

“…Changes in residence also have been associated with increased unintentional injury (Beautrais, Fergusson, & Shannon, 1982) and increased likelihood of abuse and neglect, both in retrospective studies (Lauer, Ten Broeck, & Grossman, 1974) and in a prospective study in which prediction was made on the basis of interviews conducted during the pregnancy of the subsequently abusive and neglectful parent (Altemeier, O'Connor, Vietze, Sandier, & Sherrod, 1984). Although frequent residence change is only one likely manifestation of poverty and a disorganized family system, it has been identified as a stronger predictor than other low-income correlates for both unintentional (Beautrais et al, 1982) and abuse-neglect-related (Altemeier et al, 1984) injuries.…”

A Multispecialty Approach to the Identification and Diagnosis of Nonaccidental Trauma in Children

“…Risk factors intrinsically concerned with the child which increase their risk of being abused may include age, race, gender, and health status [ 7 ]. Age is a prominent risk factor, and it has been found that infants are potentially at a greater risk of experiencing violent physical abuse; therefore, non-ambulatory children, especially those under two years of age enduring fractures, should raise a greater suspicion of abuse when presenting with suspicious injuries [ 8 , 9 ]. Accordingly, it has been recommended that all children under one year of age presenting with fractures should be reported to child protective services [ 10 ].…”

Physical disabilities as risk factors for child maltreatment: A selected review.

“…When maltreatment occurs in both a low and a high socioeconomic group, the maltreatment in the low group will more likely be reported, perhaps because low-income families by virtue of their interactions with public welfare and health systems are more subject to public scrutiny. Other demographic variables such as age of parent, race, and family structure have been investigated but they do not appear consistently able to differentiate maltreating families from other families 4, 26, 32, 34, 40, 47, 52, 56 …”