BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The reported impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on child maltreatment in the United States have been mixed. Encounter trends for child physical abuse within pediatric emergency departments may provide insights. Thus, this study sought to determine the change in the rate of emergency department encounters related to child physical abuse.

METHODS: A retrospective study within the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network Registry. Encounters related to child physical abuse were identified by 3 methods: child physical abuse diagnoses among all ages, age-restricted high-risk injury, or age-restricted skeletal survey completion. The primary outcomes were encounter rates per day and clinical severity before (January 2018-March 2020) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2020-March 2021). Multivariable Poisson regression models were fit to estimate rate ratios with marginal estimation methods.

RESULTS: Encounter rates decreased significantly during the pandemic for 2 of 3 identification methods. In fully adjusted models, encounter rates were reduced by 19% in the diagnosis-code cohort (adjusted rate ratio: 0.81 [99% confidence interval: 0.75-0.88], P <.001), with the greatest reduction among preschool and school-aged children. Encounter rates decreased 10% in the injury cohort (adjusted rate ratio: 0.90 [confidence interval: 0.82-0.98], P = .002). For all 3 methods, rates for lower-severity encounters were significantly reduced whereas higher-severity encounters were not.

CONCLUSIONS: Encounter rates for child physical abuse were reduced or unchanged. Reductions were greatest for lower-severity encounters and preschool and school-aged children. This pattern calls for critical assessment to clarify whether pandemic changes led to true reductions versus decreased recognition of child physical abuse.

<p><strong>OBJECTIVES: </strong>Diagnostic excellence is an important domain of healthcare quality. Delays in diagnosis have been described in 20-30% of children with abusive injuries. Despite the well characterized epidemiology, improvement strategies remain elusive. We sought to assess the applicability of diagnostic improvement instruments to cases of non-accidental trauma and to identify potential opportunities for system improvement in child physical abuse diagnosis.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>We purposefully sampled 10 cases identified as having potential for system level interventions and in which the child had prior outpatient encounters to review. Experts in pediatrics, child abuse, and diagnostic improvement independently reviewed each case and completed SaferDx, a validated instrument used to evaluate the diagnostic process. Cases were subsequently discussed to map potential opportunities for improving the diagnostic process to the DEER Taxonomy, which classifies opportunities by type and phase of the diagnostic process.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>The most frequent improvement opportunities identified by the SaferDx were in recognition of potential alarm symptoms and in expanding differential diagnosis (5 of 10 cases). The most frequent DEER taxonomy process opportunities were in history taking (8 of 10) and hypothesis generation (7 of 10). Discussion elicited additional opportunities in reconsideration of provisional diagnoses, understanding biopsychosocial risk, and addressing information scatter within the electronic health record (EHR).</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>Applying a diagnostic excellence framework facilitated identification of systems opportunities to improve recognition of child abuse including integration of EHR information to support recognition of alarm symptoms, collaboration to support vulnerable families, and communication about diagnostic reasoning.</p>

<p><strong>Importance: </strong>Infants who appear neurologically well and have fractures concerning for abuse are at increased risk for clinically occult head injuries. Evidence of excess variation in neuroimaging practices when abuse is suspected may indicate opportunity for quality and safety improvement.</p>

<p><strong>Objective: </strong>To quantify neuroimaging practice variation across children's hospitals among infants with fractures evaluated for abuse, with the hypothesis that hospitals would vary substantially in neuroimaging practices. As a secondary objective, factors associated with neuroimaging use were identified, with the hypothesis that age and factors associated with potential biases (ie, payer type and race or ethnicity) would be associated with neuroimaging use.</p>

<p><strong>Design, Setting, and Participants: </strong>This cross-sectional study included infants with a femur or humerus fracture or both undergoing abuse evaluation at 44 select US children's hospitals in the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) from January 1, 2016, through March 30, 2020, including emergency department, observational, and inpatient encounters. Included infants were aged younger than 12 months with a femur or humerus fracture or both without overt signs or symptoms of head injury for whom a skeletal survey was performed. To focus on infants at increased risk for clinically occult head injuries, infants with billing codes suggestive of overt neurologic signs or symptoms were excluded. Multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate demographic, clinical, and temporal factors associated with use of neuroimaging. Marginal standardization was used to report adjusted percentages of infants undergoing neuroimaging by hospital and payer type. Data were analyzed from March 2021 through January 2022.</p>

<p><strong>Exposures: </strong>Covariates included age, sex, race and ethnicity, payer type, fracture type, presentation year, and hospital.</p>

<p><strong>Main Outcomes and Measures: </strong>Use of neuroimaging by CT or MRI.</p>

<p><strong>Results: </strong>Of 2585 infants with humerus or femur fracture or both undergoing evaluations for possible child abuse, there were 1408 (54.5%) male infants, 1726 infants (66.8%) who were publicly insured, and 1549 infants (59.9%) who underwent neuroimaging. The median (IQR) age was 6.1 (3.2-8.3) months. There were 748 (28.9%) Black non-Hispanic infants, 426 (16.5%) Hispanic infants, 1148 (44.4%) White non-Hispanic infants. In multivariable analyses, younger age (eg, odds ratio [OR] for ages &lt;3 months vs ages 9 to &lt;12 months, 13.2; 95% CI, 9.54-18.2; P &lt; .001), male sex (OR, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.22-1.78; P &lt; .001), payer type (OR for public vs private insurance, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.18-1.85; P = .003), fracture type (OR for femur and humerus fracture vs isolated femur fracture, 5.36; 95% CI, 2.11-13.6; P = .002), and hospital (adjusted range in use of neuroimaging, 37.4% [95% CI 21.4%-53.5%] to 83.6% [95% CI 69.6%-97.5%]; P &lt; .001) were associated with increased use of neuroimaging, but race and ethnicity were not. Publicly insured infants were more likely to undergo neuroimaging (62.0%; 95% CI, 60.0%-64.1%) than privately insured infants (55.1%; 95% CI, 51.8%-58.4%) (P = .001).</p>

<p><strong>Conclusions and Relevance: </strong>This study found that hospitals varied in neuroimaging practices among infants with concern for abuse. Apparent disparities in practice associated with insurance type suggest opportunities for quality, safety, and equity improvement.</p>

<p><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical abuse in young children, we compared the following before and during the pandemic: (1) skeletal survey volume, (2) percent of skeletal surveys revealing clinically unsuspected (occult) fractures, and (3) clinical severity of presentation. We hypothesized that during the pandemic, children with minor abusive injuries would be less likely to present for care, but severely injured children would present at a comparable rate to prepandemic times. We expected that during the pandemic, the volume of skeletal surveys would decrease but the percentage revealing occult fractures would increase and that injury severity would increase.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>We conducted a retrospective study of children younger than 2 years undergoing skeletal surveys because of concern for physical abuse at a tertiary children's hospital. Subjects were identified by querying a radiology database during the March 15, 2019-October 15, 2019 (pre-COVID-19) period and the March 15, 2020-October 15, 2020 (COVID-19) period, followed by chart review to refine our population and abstract clinical and imaging data.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>Pre-COVID-19, 160 skeletal surveys were performed meeting the inclusion criteria, compared with 125 during COVID-19, representing a 22% decrease. No change was observed in identification of occult fractures (6.9% pre-COVID vs 6.4% COVID, P = 0.87). Clinical severity of presentation did not change, and child protective services involvement/referral decreased during COVID.</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>Despite a &gt;20% decrease in skeletal survey performance early in the pandemic, the percent of skeletal surveys revealing occult fractures did not increase. Our results suggest that decreases in medical evaluations for abuse did not stem from decreased presentation of less severely injured children.</p>

<p><strong>OBJECTIVES: </strong>Multiple states have passed legislation permitting marijuana use. The impact of legalization on trends in hospital encounters for marijuana exposures in young children across states remains unknown. We aimed to describe trends in marijuana-related hospital encounters over time in children &lt;6 years and assess the association of state-level marijuana legislation with the rate of marijuana-related hospitalizations.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>We identified inpatient, emergency department and observation encounters for children &lt;6 years with marijuana exposures (defined by International Classification of Diseases diagnosis codes) unique on the patient-year level at 52 children's hospitals in the Pediatric Health Information System database from 01/01/2004-12/31/2018. Trends in encounters across the study period were evaluated using negative binomial regression with outcome of marijuana-related hospital encounters and year as the predictor variable accounting for clustering by hospital. We then estimated a negative binomial regression difference-in-differences model to examine the association between the main outcome and state recreational and medical marijuana legalization.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>Of the 1296 included unique patient-year encounters, 50% were female with mean age 2.1 years (SD=1.4). Fifty percent were inpatient (n=645) and 15% required intensive care with 4% requiring mechanical ventilation. There was a 13.3-fold increase in exposures in 2018 compared to 2004 (p &lt;0.001). We did not find an effect of state legalization status for recreational (p=0.24) or medical (p=0.30) marijuana.</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>The observed dramatic increase in marijuana-related hospital encounters highlights the need for prevention strategies aimed at reducing unintentional marijuana exposures in young children, even in states without legislation permitting marijuana use.</p>

<p>Within their first year, a number of infants present for medical evaluation because of unexplained changes in color, tone, breathing, or level of responsiveness. This broad collection of symptoms has an accordingly large differential diagnosis that includes both brief resolved unexplained event (BRUE) and child maltreatment. The overlap between clinical presentation for BRUE and maltreatment can present a diagnostic challenge - especially given the significant consequences for infants and families for diagnostic error at that juncture. In this review, we provide overviews of the presenting features and findings in cases of BRUE and child maltreatment with a focus on areas of overlap and differentiation.</p>

<p>Infants are at greatest risk of severe and fatal physical abuse yet they sometimes present for medical care multiple times with abusive injuries prior to being diagnosed with abuse and having protective actions taken. Efforts to identify these infants in a timely manner are critical to prevent repeated, escalating abuse and subsequent harm. Increasing the identification and evaluation of sentinel injuries has been highlighted as a strategy for improving timely detection of abuse in infants. Sentinel injuries are visible, minor, poorly explained injuries in young infants that raise concern for abuse. These injuries include cutaneous injuries such as bruising, subconjunctival hemorrhages and intra-oral injuries. Sentinel injuries can signal concurrent clinically occult but more serious injuries or precede more significant trauma from abuse. As such, sentinel injuries offer an opportunity to intervene and protect infants from further harm. A thorough physical exam is critical for detecting sentinel injuries. Imaging with skeletal survey and, when appropriate, neuroimaging are key components of the medical evaluation of sentinel injuries in these high-risk infants.</p>

<p>Abusive intra-abdominal injuries are less common than other types of injuries, such as fractures and bruises, identified in victims of child physical abuse, but they can be deadly. No single abdominal injury is pathognomonic for abuse, but some types and constellations of intra-abdominal injuries are seen more frequently in abused children. Identification of intra-abdominal injuries can be important clinically or forensically. Injuries that do not significantly change clinical management can still elevate a clinician's level of concern for abuse and thereby influence subsequent decisions affecting child protection efforts. Abusive intra-abdominal injuries can be clinically occult, necessitating screening laboratory evaluations to inform decisions regarding imaging. Once detected, consideration of developmental abilities of the child, type and constellation of injuries, and the forces involved in any provided mechanism of trauma are necessary to inform assessments of plausibility of injury mechanisms and level of concern for abuse. Here we describe the clinical, laboratory and imaging evaluation of the abdomen in the setting of suspected child abuse.</p>

<p><strong>BACKGROUND: </strong>The 2016 Presidential Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities identified systematic review of all cases of near-fatal child maltreatment as a necessary step towards prevention of child maltreatment fatalities. A critical barrier to adoption of this recommendation is the lack of a standard definition of "near-fatality" in the context of suspected child maltreatment.</p>

<p><strong>OBJECTIVE: </strong>To develop a consensus definition of near-fatal child maltreatment to be used in practice, policy, and research.</p>

<p><strong>PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: </strong>A multidisciplinary expert panel of 23 individuals from across the U.S. including child abuse pediatricians, pediatric intensivists, pediatric emergency medicine physicians, child welfare administrators, child welfare researchers, and child injury/fatality researchers.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>A modified Delphi process reflecting an iterative process of 3 rounds of surveys of expert opinion, statistical summary of survey response, and feedback of summary statistics. Consensus was defined as 75 % of panelists ranking an element as required (≥80 on a scale of 0-100) to meet a definition of near-fatality (75th% threshold).</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>Experts defined near-fatal child maltreatment as life-threatening cardiopulmonary dysfunction directly attributable to suspected abuse or neglect as evidenced by (a) respiratory insufficiency/failure requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation, (b) respiratory insufficiency/failure requiring medications to reverse effects of toxic ingestion, or (c) cardiac arrhythmia with/without cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>A consensus definition of near-fatal child maltreatment should be introduced in child protective services processes and in child fatality/near-fatality reviews to improve our ability to identify, review, and respond to trends in near-fatal child maltreatment at local, regional, and national levels.</p>

<p><strong>BACKGROUND: </strong>Urinalysis, liver enzymes (LE) and lipase are used to screen for abdominal injuries in children with suspected physical abuse (SPA). However, data on the utility of urinalysis is limited.</p>

<p><strong>OBJECTIVES: </strong>Describe the prevalence of hematuria in evaluations for SPA. Determine test characteristics of hematuria, LE and lipase to identify kidney and other abdominal injuries among children with SPA.</p>

<p><strong>PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: </strong>Children &lt; 7 years receiving a urinalysis during evaluation for SPA by a hospital child protection team.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data including presence of hematuria (blood on urine dipstick), elevated LE (&gt; 80 U/L) and elevated lipase (&gt; 100 U/L) were abstracted retrospectively. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated for the overall study population and for patients without abdominal symptoms.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>Ten percent of patients had hematuria (N = 237). Prevalence of abdominal and kidney injuries was 7 % and 1 % respectively. Of 3 patients with kidney injury, 2 had hematuria and all had elevated LE. Sensitivity (67 %) and NPV (99 %) of hematuria to detect kidney injuries were lower than LE and the same as lipase. Specificity (91 %) and PPV (8%) of hematuria to detect kidney injury were greater than LE and similar to lipase. Sensitivity of hematuria to detect any abdominal injury (50 %) was lower than LE (81 %). Sensitivity of hematuria to detect occult abdominal injury was 0 %.</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSIONS: </strong>Hematuria alone did not lead to detection of kidney injury. Test characteristics of hematuria were largely similar or inferior to LE and lipase.</p>