The Effectiveness of Child Injury Database and Registry in Identifying Children Who are Potentially at Risk of Abuse: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Child injury is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study is to systematically review trauma and injury databases and/or Child Protection Registries available globally that include children ≤18 years and to determine their effectiveness in identifying children potentially at risk of abuse within the community. Methods: Four high-yield electronic databases were searched, they were PubMed, EMBASE, PsychInfo and ProQuest to retrieve articles studying child injury databases. Full articles published in English from 2006 to 2016 that met the inclusion criteria were chosen. The included articles were appraised and evaluated by three reviewers independently. Results: Overall, 12 articles that studied child injury databases were selected. The articles were then categorized into five themes: 1) risk factors; 2) characteristics of abused children; 3) repeated admission; 4) concordance with other databases; and 5) presentation at the emergency department. The effectiveness of each theme in identifying children who are potentially at risk of abuse was then evaluated. Injury databases that used characteristics of abused children as a theme in identifying abuse cases were shown to be the most effective, followed by risk factors (fairly effective), repeated admission (fairly effective) and concordance with other databases (fairly effective). Presentation at the emergency department was shown to be not effective in predicting child abuse. Conclusion: Existing studies showed that there are still limitations in databases for identifying children at risk of abuse. The set-up of an integrated database with linkage to other databases will increase efficiency in detection and assist in early identification of children potentially at risk of abuse in the emergency setting.